Over a week ago, 37-year-old Yordanis Cobos-Martinez appeared in court for the first time after he was accused of beheading his Indian-origin boss Chandra Mouli Nagamallaiah in Dallas, Texas. Both of them worked at Downtown Suites Motel, where the Indian-American man was a manager.
No death penalty for Indian motel manager’s killer in Texas?
In a shocking development, death penalty was reportedly taken off the table in the case. Within a month of the fatal September incident, Cobos-Martinez was indicted on a capital murder charge. The Dallas motel beheading suspect appeared at the Frank Crowley Courthouse on November 20, when Prosecutor Julie Johnson told the court the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office was not planning on trying this as a death penalty case.
Based on our investigation and my conversations, the state of Texas is not seeking the death penalty,” the prosecutor said, as per Fox 4 News. “But we reserve the right to change our mind should anything come up.”
US authorities had initially identified the 37-year-old as a Cuban national who had been in the country illegally. American news reports have since established that it was not at all surprising for the ultimate punishment to be scrapped off, especially when the person being tried is not a US citizen.
A final decision about the death penalty would be made by January 8, said prosecutor Johnson, as cited by Fox 4 News.
Court-appointed defence attorney Lalon “Clipper” Peale urged the judge to fully confirm the no-death penalty plan. “Obviously, he’s not from the United States. Mitigation is going to need to be done. That mitigation will entail having to make trips either by council or mitigation experts to Cuba and some other destinations as well,” he said. “So there’s going to be some extensive mitigation that needs to be done in this case.”
As highlighted by the Cuban man’s lawyer, the defence would have to turn to Cobos-Martinez’s family and conduct a deep probe into his background to build the case in his favour. This would require officials to go to his native Cuba and other locations, including California, where the suspect lived before shifting to Texas.
And so, this extensive investigation would have to be facilitated on the backs of Dallas County taxpayers’ money.
Indian motel manager beheaded in Texas: What happened?
The Cuban suspect is said to have come after 50-year-old Chandra Mouli Nagamallaiah, his boss at the Dallas motel, with a machete on September 10. He then attacked the Indian-American man, who originally hailed from the state of Karnataka, right in front of his wife and child.
The machete attack is said to have followed a heated argument regarding a broken washing machine. After beheading Nagamallaiah, the Cuban man reportedly kicked the victim’s head “around like a soccer ball.”
The Department of Homeland Security red-flagged Cobos-Martinez as an undocumented immigrant. Days after the fatal incident, the DHS said in an official press release that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had lodged a detainer for the his arrest and removal.
The officials described him as “an illegal alien from Cuban with a rap sheet including child sex abuse, grand theft of a motor vehicle, false imprisonment and carjacking.” He had a previous final order of removal to Cuba, and was previously being held at a detention centre.
The DHS further revealed that Yordanis was released from ICE Dallas custody on an Order of Supervision under the Biden administration on January 13, 2025. “This barbaric criminal was released because Cuba would not accept him because of his criminal history,” Homeland Security’s press release added.
Upon learning about the incident, US President Donald Trump severely condemned the killing of the Indian man. “The time for being soft on these Illegal Immigrant Criminals is OVER under my watch,” he said in a Truth Social post. He also affirmed that Cobos-Martinez would be “prosecuted to the fullest extent” and would be “charged with murder in the first degree.”
When does the trial start?
In December, both the prosecutor and defence sides will have to check in with the judge. A trial date has yet to be confirmed.