Texas police arrested the boyfriend of a woman found hanging from a dock in late May. League City Police said James Hart, 51, has been arrested and charged with tampering/fabricating physical evidence with intent to impair a human corpse.
Authorities initially believed that Giselle Tapia-Salazar had committed suicide, but two weeks later they detained two people suspected to be involved in her death. "Because of the position of her arm, we believe she probably passed away somewhere else. Rigor mortis set in and then she was moved, her arms stayed in that position," League City Police Lt. Eric Cox said.
Hart said that Tapia-Salazar had gone to the bathroom in the middle of the night and never returned. However, a neighbor of them raised suspicion about their relationship, telling KHOU-TV that they "fought like crazy, and loved like crazy."
Hart was found at the scene of the crime, but authorities said he became "very distraught and not come out of his boat" after engaging with them. He later told reporters that the death felt "like a nightmare you can't wake up from."
Tapia-Salazar was a single mother of four. Her brother wrote in a GoFund Me page, created to help cover her funeral expenses and financially help her family, that she left "3 little ones for my mother and I to raise."
"God has a plan for everyone and the only thing giving my family peace is knowing that my sister no longer suffers," reads a passage of the page's message. "The proceeds will be used to give my sister a proper send off, after funeral arrangements are covered, the remainder of donations will go towards the 3 children she leaves behind," it added. The fund has raised $5,100 out of the $10,000 goal set.
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