ICE Files Detainer on Illegal Immigrant Accused of Murdering 2 Texas Women: DNA Linked Both Killings 6 Years Apart

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has filed an immigration detainer asking officials in Dallas, Texas, not to release an illegal immigrant from Mexico, who has been accused of murdering two young women in Central Texas over the span of six years. Police linked the two murders through DNA evidence, reports say. 

Luis Benitez-Gonzalez, 26, has been charged with first-degree murder in Austin, Fox4 News reports. The charges are in connection with the killing of 28-year-old Alba Jenisse Aviles in Bastrop County in 2018 and the killing of 34-year-old Alyssa Ann Rivera in Austin in 2024.

On April 27, 2026, Dallas police charged Benitez-Gonzalez with two counts of felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in connection with two incidents on Burton Drive in late 2025. Previously, the suspect was arrested for alleged possession of “dangerous dr*gs,” states a press release by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) dated May 13, 2023. 

Investigation into the aggravated assault cases led authorities to link the suspect to the 2018 and 2024 murders. 

According to the court paperwork and jail records cited by Fox4 News, Aviles was murdered on April 14, 2018, on Old San Antonio Road, Dale, Bastrop County.  

According to court documents, she was allegedly last seen at a club in Austin with an unidentified Hispanic man. Meanwhile, surveillance footage from June 19, 2024, showed the second victim, Rivera, walking with a man in the neighborhood where police found her body two days later on June 21. 

The medical examiner on the case also concluded that Rivera had been hit on her head and nose. The two cases were initially treated as separate. But in August 2024, police found DNA evidence that linked both murders, according to Fox4 News. 

In 2024, APD Sgt. Nathan Sexton noted that although DNA evidence from both locations pointed to the same person, Benitez-Gonzalez’s lack of a criminal record meant he wasn’t registered in the department’s system.

Then, in December 2025, detectives working on the Rivera murder were alerted to two aggravated assault cases on Burton Drive. In both cases, a man had shot two women on separate occasions.

Both women described specific details about the suspect, including that he had “threaded, sharp eyebrows.” A search warrant for the suspect’s phone had earlier uncovered two selfies. They reportedly showed a Hispanic man aged between 20 and 30 years and matched the victims’ descriptions. 

One of these selfies was released to the public to help locate the suspect. Following this, the APD received a tip that identified the suspect as Luis Fernando Gonzalez Benitez. A second tip reportedly claimed that he was trying to sell firearms and flee from the country. 

Investigators also uncovered a 2019 Travis County booking photo tied to a separate aggravated assault case that appeared to match the selfies. 

A much more thorough review of the suspect’s phone reportedly revealed searches for Dale, Texas, along with photos of vacant Burton Drive apartments where the flooring appeared to have been replaced. Investigators also found an October 2025 photo of a trailer with missing flooring taken near a homestead less than half a mile from where Aviles’ car was discovered.

Police later learned that a woman tied to the 2019 aggravated assault case lived just a five-minute walk from the home where Rivera’s body was found, prompting investigators to seek a DNA warrant for Benítez-González.

U.S. Marshals arrested him on April 27 at the Cornerstone Apartments in Dallas, where authorities collected his DNA for testing. Court records say lab results returned on May 6 confirmed his DNA matched evidence recovered from the Rivera homicide scene.

“Alba Jenisse Aviles and Alyssa Ann Rivera should still be alive today. ICE asked officials in Dallas to not release this MURDERER,” Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said. “Because Dallas cooperates with ICE law enforcement, we will work with local law enforcement to ensure this criminal is NEVER loose in American neighborhoods again.”

Benítez-González is being held without bond after the Travis County District Attorney’s Office requested it, reports Fox4 News. According to the DHS, Benitez-Gonzalez first came to the U.S. illegally at an undetermined date and location. He was then arrested in Texas and deported to Mexico in 2020. He then re-entered the country illegally at an unknown date and location.