An 85-year-old man was arrested Tuesday in New Mexico after police alleged he killed a woman almost 37 years ago in Garland.
Liborio Canales was arrested in Lovington, New Mexico, and booked into the Lea County Detention Center to await extradition to Texas on a federal warrant for murder, according to the local police department. His bond is set at $1 million.
DNA evidence linked Canales to the 1986 killing of Barbara Villarreal, police said.
On Nov. 7, 1986, Garland officers responded to the 3600 block of Colbath Street and found Villarreal with numerous stab wounds and a large kitchen knife near her body, according to police. Her husband was interviewed but cleared of the slaying and DNA evidence was collected but no arrest had been made for more than three decades.
Officers from Lovington, Garland and the FBI played a part in the arrest, tracking leads in the United States and Mexico and eventually using technology to determine Canales as a suspect.
Canales moved to Lovington in the years after the stabbing and had been in Mexico majority of the last year but returned to the U.S. on Monday to celebrate his birthday with his family, police said.
He will be brought to Texas in the coming days, police said.
