‘They were trying to kill my wife:’ Husband of woman accused in murder-for-hire case collapses at trial
The husband of a woman accused in a 2017 murder-for-hire plot in San Antonio sobbed and collapsed on the witness stand Monday while pleading that her life and those of their children are in danger.Jose DePaz was a defense witness for Angelica Navarro-DePaz, 44, an Austin businesswoman charged with solicitation of capital murder with remuneration. San Antonio police captured her on video and audio asking an undercover detective posing as a hit man to kill her boyfriend's sister.
Henrietta Martinez, the informant known as “Katy,” extorted monthly payments as protection for a bar the defendant owned, and had ordered her to go through the motions of seeking the assassination so the target could get her immigration status cleared up — none of which she reported to police because Martinez told her she worked with the police, Navarro-DePaz said. Martinez is now deceased.
DePaz cried while detailing the burns on his wife’s body, and said, “They were trying to kill my wife, the mother of my children.”Defendant testifies in murder-for-hire trial; says San Antonio police informant shook down her business Flores testified last week that she did not know Martinez and that she owed Navarro-DePaz $40,000 for bringing her into the country illegally, an allegation also floated by two San Antonio police detectives who testified last week.