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Teen Suspect Arrested in Rape and Murder of Texas 11-Year-Old

Police say Juan Carlos Garcia-Rodriguez, 18, will be charged with capital murder and extradited to Texas.

Police arrested a suspect Saturday in Louisiana in the sexual assault and murder of 11-year-old Maria Gonzalez. Juan Carlos Garcia-Rodriguez, 18, will be charged with capital murder and extradited to Texas, where the killing took place, police said. Rodriguez lived in the same apartment complex as Gonzalez, whose body was found last week by her father wrapped in plastic in a laundry basket that had been shoved under her bed. Authorities found a key to the apartment Rodriguez was staying in at the scene and questioned him and collected his DNA but did not make an arrest at the time. He disappeared shortly thereafter and was named a person of interest on Friday. “I want justice. I need her killer to turn himself in and I’m asking God that kind-hearted people help us bring our daughter’s remains back to Guatemala,” Gonzalez’s mother, Ana Elizabeth Xitumul Saput, previously told Telemundo 47 from her home in Guatemala.