Man charged with murder of his common-law spouse
Austin police have charged a man with murder in the death of his common-law wife, who was found dead at her home Sunday.
Miguel Angel Aguinaga-Rodriguez, 33, was booked at the Travis County Jail on the first-degree felony offense Wednesday, jail records show.
He is also in jail on an assault charge and is being held for immigration authorities, with bail set at $1.075 million.
Elizabeth Adame-Gaspar, 32, was pronounced dead at her apartment on Anderson Lane near U.S. 290 after officers received a call from her friend who said she found the woman unconscious, according to an arrest affidavit.
The friend went to Adame-Gaspar’s home after receiving a call from a babysitter who said that Adame-Gaspar never picked up her children, the affidavit says.
Adame-Gaspar was found with bruises and swelling on her face and arm, and her friend told police that the father of Adame-Gaspar’s youngest child, Aguinaga-Rodriguez, had assaulted her April 3, the affidavit says.
When Austin police talked to Adame-Gaspar’s neighbors Monday, the day after she was found dead, one woman told a detective that Adame-Gaspar’s husband’s pickup was parked outside the apartment complex around 2:30 a.m. April 12.
Aguinaga-Rodriguez also talked to police the day after Adame-Gaspar was found, calling the department looking for information because he said he heard his wife was dead, the affidavit says. The phone call disconnected shortly after, it says.
Adame-Gaspar’s brother told police that Aguinaga-Rodriguez had told him that he left her home on Sunday and she was fine, the affidavit says.
Officers arrested Aguinaga-Rodriguez on Monday in Sweeney, about an hour southwest of Houston, on grounds that he assaulted Adame-Gaspar.
Aguinaga-Rodriguez repeatedly denied that he was able to get into Adame-Gaspar’s apartment on Sunday but after “several hours of interrogation,” he said he entered through a sliding glass door and started yelling at her, the affidavit says.
He “said he laid down on the bed to go to sleep and the victim started hitting him,” according to the document. “Miguel said he hit the victim with a hard back hand once and this knocked the victim unconscious.”
He later told police that he hit her twice, threw her down “and she hit a metal or wooded object and bounced.”
He never said he knew the victim was dead, the affidavit says.