AUSTIN, Texas - Authorities have arrested a suspect in two murders spread over two counties and six years through DNA evidence.
26-year-old Luis Fernando Benítez González has been charged with first-degree murder in Austin.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Search for suspect in connection to murders in Austin & Bastrop County
What they're saying:
Austin Police says it, alongside the Bastrop County Sheriff's Office and the US Marshals, have arrested a suspect connected to the murders of 34-year-old Alyssa Ann Rivera in Austin and 28-year-old Alba Jenisse Aviles in Bastrop County.
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FULL: APD speaks on murder suspect arrest
A suspect has been arrested in two Central Texas murders in two separate counties six years apart. APD and the US Marshals speak on the investigation and arrest.
Dig deeper:
Benítez-González also has two counts of second-degree felony aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to jail records.
Those charges are connected to assaults on Burton Drive in late 2025, according to court paperwork.
The US Marshals say that Benítez-González was found to be a Mexican national who had previously voluntarily deported in 2020.
What you can do:
Police say they have reason to believe that Benítez-González may have had other threatening or violent encounters with women in the Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and Hidalgo areas.
Anyone with any information is urged to contact Austin police, Crime Stoppers or their local law enforcement.
What happened to Alyssa Rivera and Alba Aviles?
From left: Alba Jenisse Aviles Marti; Luis Benitez-Gonzalez, and Alyssa Ann Rivera (Austin Police Department)
The backstory:
Court paperwork details the investigation into the murders of Rivera and Aviles.
Alba Aviles murder
On April 14, 2018, Aviles was murdered in the 300 block of Old San Antonio Road in Dale in Bastrop County. Her body was discovered in her car by a passing motorist.
She had been last seen alive at Club Caribe on Felter Lane in Austin with an unidentified Hispanic man.
Bastrop County detectives found evidence that Aviles had been dragged, strangled and assaulted, including mud on her clothing and feet, bruising on her neck, chin and lip, and blood on her face and on the outside of her car. Detectives also found one of her earrings ten feet away from the car.
Alyssa Rivera murder
On June 21, 2024, Austin police found Rivera's body in an abandoned house in the 2600 block of Metcalfe Road in the Riverside area.
Rivera was found with an extension cord wrapped around her neck and police found a bloody rock, bloody handprints, and evidence Rivera had been forcibly dragged into the house and assaulted.
The medical examiner's office determined that she had been hit in the head and nose.
A canvas of the neighborhood where she was found turned up surveillance footage from June 19 showing Rivera walking with a man, one of the last moments captured of her alive.
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VIDEO: Person of interest in Austin murder
The Austin Police Department released new images of a person of interest in connection to the death of a 34-year-old woman.
Linking the murders
Initially, these were believed to be separate cases, but in August 2024, police learned of a DNA link between the two murders.
"There was DNA found at both scenes," said APD Sgt. Nathan Sexton in 2024. "Multiple sources of DNA at both scenes, but the same suspect links back in both cases."
The suspect, however, was not in APD's database because he had never been arrested.
Aggravated assault investigations
In December 2025, detectives in the Rivera murder were alerted to two aggravated assaults along Burton Drive where a man had shot two women.
First Burton Drive assault
On Nov. 19, 2025, officers responded to a 911 call at the Solaris Apartments on Burton Drive where the caller described a woman in the roadway with a gunshot wound. She was found and taken to the hospital by EMS.
The woman told detectives she had taken her assailant's cell phone and handed it over for evidence. The suspect was described as a Hispanic man who was known around the area and had previously victimized her.
She didn't know his name, but described him to officers, offering specific details like his shoes and that he had "threaded, sharp eyebrows."
She said he entered her apartment, but he tried to control and victimize her, prompting her to push back and leading to a struggle over his cell phone. The altercation escalated further to him pointing a handgun at her and shooting her in the leg.
Detectives later found a spent cartridge and a blood trail at the crime scene and got surveillance footage from a nearby apartment complex showing the woman being chased by the suspect and holding his cell phone.
A search warrant for the phone uncovered two selfies depicting a Hispanic male between 20 and 30 years old, with sharp well kept eyebrows matching her description. One of those selfies was released to the public in an effort to identify him.
Second Burton Drive assault
The second assault happened around Dec. 13, 2025.
The victim told police she had met with a man and agreed to go to a vacant apartment to drink with him at 2101 Burton Drive. They began to fight over money and the victim started pushing him out. The man then pulled a handgun and shot her in the left.
The victim described the suspect as a shorter, thin man with a very square jaw and nice eyebrows, a description detectives believe matched the selfies found on the phone from the first assault.
Detectives also found a spent cartridge and evidence of gunfire at the apartment the victim told them about.
The two assaults were later linked through data from the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN).
Suspect identified
After police released the selfie, APD received a tip identifying him as Luis Fernando Gonzalez Benitez and a second tip saying he was trying to sell firearms and may be trying to flee the country.
Police also found a previous Travis County booking photo from another aggravated assault charge in 2019 that appeared to match the selfies.
Searching his phone
A deeper search of the cell phone uncovered a search history for Dale, Texas and photos of vacant apartments in the Burton Drive area where flooring had been replaced. Police also found a photo of a trailer with missing flooring that metadata showed had been taken in October 2025 in the area of a homestead less than half a mile from where Aviles' car was found.
Police also learned that a woman connected to that previous aggravated assault charge lived about a five-minute walk from the home where Rivera's body was found.
This led to police obtaining a warrant for Benitez-Gonzalez' DNA.
The arrest
On April 27, US Marshals arrested Benítez-González at the Cornerstone Apartments in Dallas. His DNA was collected there and submitted for analysis. On May 6, lab results confirmed a match to DNA found on evidence recovered from the Rivera homicide crime scene, court paperwork says. A previous CODIS hit had matched DNA found at both murder scenes, potentially linking Benítez-González to Aviles' murder as well.
Suspect interview
Detectives interviewed Benitez-Gonzalez after his arrest about all four cases. In all four cases, he claimed self-defense, adding that the women were either trying to rob him or extort him for money, according to court paperwork.
In the Rivera murder, he said he was on drugs and defending himself because she had attacked him in an argument over drugs. He claimed they had had sex and upon further questioning, admitted to grabbing her by the neck from behind and strangling her for about seven minutes. He denied using any other items on her neck despite her being found with an extension cord around her neck. He also told police he threw away the clothes he was wearing.
In the Aviles murder, he initially denied ever going to Club Caribe or to Dale, but when presented with evidence, said she was giving him a ride to his mother's house in Lockhart, when she demanded money from him and refused to let him out. He said during an argument, she tried to strangle him with the seatbelt, which he then turned on her, holding the belt tight around her neck for four to five minutes. He also claimed they had had sex in the car.
He also initially denied any involvement in the two Burton Drive aggravated assaults, but when pressed, said the woman in the first assault had robbed him of money and his phone. He claimed the gun in the first assault was not his, that he had found it on the ground, and had thrown it in a river after the shooting. Polie pressed him on whether he had actually discarded the gun because of the NIBIN link, and he reportedly admitted to the December assault, but because she was also trying to rob him.
The Source: Information in this report comes from the Austin Police Department, Travis County court and jail records, court paperwork, and previous reporting by FOX 7 Austin.