Jose Sifuentes

Jose Sifuentes (born 1978) is an American serial killer. He was arrested in May 2003 for the rape and murder of a woman in Dallas, Texas. After posting bail, he fled to Mexico, where he spent the next sixteen years as a fugitive. Authorities later identified him as the killer in the 1998 murders of two women via DNA evidence.

In 2019, the FBI captured Sifuentes in Mexico, and he was extradited to the United States in 2020. In 2021 he pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

At the time of the killings, Sifuentes worked at an auto repair shop as a mechanic. Each woman he murdered he had befriended at bars or clubs and convinced them to come home with him. He then proceeded to strip, rape, and kill them.

• Maria Perales – on February 15, 1998, an Old East Dallas resident stumbled upon the nude body of 20-year-old Maria de Lourdes Perales. Police early on determined that whoever had killed her had previously sexually assaulted her and then strangled her to death. They also determined that the killer had used their car to run over her dead body.

• Erica Hernandez – On June 27, 1998, the nude body of 23-year-old Erica Olivia Hernandez was found lying in a gravel pit in northwestern Dallas along Harry Hines Boulevard. She was determined to have also been raped and strangled.

• Veronica Hernandez – On May 16, 2003, the partially nude body of 27-year-old Veronica Hernandez was found outside an auto repair shop in southern Dallas, the same shop Sifuentes worked at. During the investigation authorities received a tip from a witness who had seen Hernandez with a mechanic who had the name "Jose" on their employee nametag. Subsequently, Sifuentes was arrested, and confessed to raping, choking, and strangling Hernandez to death. In July 2003 Sifuentes posted bail, and afterwards fled across the Mexico–United States border. Shortly after, DNA confirmed Sifuentes' responsibility in Hernandez's murder along with the previous murders. However, when authorities went to arrest him, they failed to find him. They soon realized that he had likely fled to Mexico, and the FBI was brought in to investigate and declared Sifuentes a fugitive from justice.

For the next sixteen years, Sifuentes hid out in San Vicente de González, a small town in Nuevo León with less than 200 residents. In 2016, the Dallas Police Department (DPD) and the District Attorney's office granted a provisional arrest warrant with the U.S. Department of Justice, and this gave them the authority to search for Sifuentes in Mexico. In January 2019 a judge in Mexico issued an arrest warrant for Sifuentes. In April 2019 the DPD, FBI, and DA's office successfully located Sifuentes' whereabouts, and arrested him. He was then taken into custody in Mexico City. After lengthy extradition proceedings, he was returned to Texas on January 8, 2020, and charged with the murders. On May 13, 2021, Sifuentes pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and received three life sentences.

Sifuentes is currently incarcerated at the Clements Unit in Amarillo.