Is there a serial killer in Texas? DNA links 2 women strangled 6 years apart, cops say

Investigators believe there’s a serial killer at large in Texas, citing evidence found at a recent murder scene that matched another killing six years before.

The announcement comes amid the Austin Police Department’s investigation into the killing of 34-year-old Alyssa Ann Rivera, who was found dead inside an abandoned home on Austin’s south side on June 21, according to officials.

On Aug. 7, investigators made a surprising discovery — DNA evidence found at the house matched DNA from a different murder that happened 6 years earlier but only a few miles away, officials said during an Aug. 14 news briefing.

A 28-year-old woman, Alba Jenisse Aviles, was killed in 2018, officials said. The Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office launched an investigation after a passing motorist spotted Aviles dead inside of her silver Ford sedan, which had been left on the side of a gravel road.

DNA at the scenes isn’t the only thing the two killings have in common, according to investigators. Rivera and Aviles were both strangled, and their murders were “sexual in nature,” officials said.

Additionally, investigators said Aviles’ killer met her at a venue in Austin called Club Caribe, which is just 3 miles from where Rivera was killed.

“It’s definitely possible … that the suspect either lives in the area or was visiting somebody in the area. But for it to have been so geographically tied is pretty coincidental,” officials said.

Investigators released video that captured Rivera walking with a male “person of interest” shortly before she was killed, but so far police have little else to go on.

Often, DNA evidence is enough to find a perpetrator by searching CODIS, the FBI-run database containing DNA records of anyone who’s been convicted of a crime in the U.S. But whoever killed Rivera and Aviles isn’t in CODIS, which is “relatively rare,” officials said, as the type of killer they’re looking for usually has a history of arrests and convictions.

It’s also possible the two women aren’t the unknown killer’s only victims.

“There could be more. These are the only two we’ve actually linked through DNA,” officials said, but added they’re not aware of any similar unsolved murders in the area.

Police are asking anyone with information to come forward and share what they know.

“Anyone that knows (Rivera) would hopefully come forward if they had any little bit of trivial information. Someone they thought she might have been hanging out with recently. Somebody that maybe moved into town recently,” officials said. “Any little bit that they think would be helpful, especially knowing there’s another victim in this case.”

This story was originally published August 15, 2024 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Is there a serial killer in Texas? DNA links 2 women strangled 6 years apart, cops say."