Estranged husband charged in woman’s 2013 death arrested
A man accused of stabbing his estranged wife to death in 2013 — months after he was released from jail for trying to strangle her — has been apprehended after fleeing years earlier to Mexico, according to court records.
Authorities arrested Alan Fabricio Fernandez last week on a murder charge stemming from the November 2013 death of 22-year-old Abigail Owens. He remains held without bail at the Harris County Jail.
Fernandez, details of whose arrest were not immediately known, did not appear last Wednesday before a magistrate during a probable cause hearing, records show.
Months before Owens’ death, Fernandez was released from a one-year jail sentence for misdemeanor assault. He was accused of trying to strangle her. A protective order was filed after that 2012 arrest, records show.
Owens’ mother warned of Fernandez’s harassing behavior while lodging a missing persons report for her daughter.
The mother said Owens wrote a Facebook post Nov. 7, 2013, and then vanished, along with her boyfriend’s pickup.
More than a week later, a would-be thief led police to Owens’ body in the 5500 block of Pine. The self-professed car prowler told authorities that he spied a rifle in the back seat and broke in. He then discovered a woman’s body under a pile of clothes, which were later identified to have belonged to Fernandez.
He got out of the truck and flagged down a police officer for help, charging papers show.
Police at first sought Fernandez for questioning but did not call him a suspect in the case. The murder charge, filed in February 2014, outlined that Fernandez likely fled to Mexico soon after Owens’ death. His sister and mother told investigators that Fernandez called them from the U.S-Mexico bor
der and confessed to killing Owens, according to authorities.
He said he killed her “by cutting her throat with a knife” but claimed it was an act of self-defense.
Medical examiner records indicate that Owens’ throat was “slashed and stabbed several times on both sides” and that the wounds were not accidental.