A Houston jury has convicted a man of murdering his girlfriend, a young mother who disappeared in 2018 and whose body has never been recovered. The verdict brought a measure of accountability to a case that had haunted the woman's family for years.
The jury delivered its decision this week. Jurors found Erik Arceneaux, 51, guilty of murder in the death of Maria Jimenez Rodriguez, and the judge said that his punishment would be determined at a later date.
The disappearance dated back several years. Rodriguez, a 29-year-old mother, went missing on June 21, 2018, last seen after dropping her daughter off at daycare before heading to work, a destination she never reached.
Unusual details emerged in the hours around her vanishing. Her co-workers received text messages saying she would be late and that she was being followed, messages they described as suspicious, and investigators said Rodriguez was never heard from again.
Prosecutors built their case even though a body was never found. Investigators alleged that Arceneaux was responsible for her death, and the fact that her remains have never been located became one of the defining features of the case.
For years, the accused evaded capture. Arceneaux remained on the run for five years after Rodriguez was reported missing, until he was arrested in September 2023 by a violent-offender task force in a Walmart parking lot in southeast Houston.
The path to trial was a long one. His case dragged on after his arrest, with a judge denying bond, and the trial finally began in June 2026, more than eight years after Rodriguez first disappeared.
With the guilty verdict now in, the case moves toward sentencing. For Rodriguez's family, the conviction offered a long-awaited step toward justice, even as the absence of her remains left them without the closure of being able to lay her to rest.