A Wichita Falls man is charged with murder in connection with a woman who had been reported missing for several days.
Matison Jonathan Preville Jr. was being held Thursday afternoon in the Wichita County Jail on a $1 million bond, according to online jail records.
Anyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent until convicted beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Murder is a first degree felony punishable by up to life in prison if a person is convicted.
According to allegations in an arrest warrant affidavit, a friend reported Keren Martinez Ballesteros missing Tuesday after not hearing from her since Saturday when the woman was supposed to be going to Preville’s apartment at the Mustang Village Apartments in the 5000 block of Lake Park Drive.
The affidavit said police searched Preville’s apartment, and he told them Ballesteros was his ex-girlfriend, that he had last seen her on Thursday but had been trying to text her since Saturday.
During the investigation, the concerned friend who reported Ballestero missing told police that she might be pregnant.
Some video surveillance showed someone getting into Preville’s vehicle on Saturday, according to allegations in the affidavit. Records of Ballesteros’ cell phone data obtained by police showed the phone moved around Wichita Falls on Saturday before staying in one spot in a large field near Cashion Road and Carriage Lane on the north edge of Wichita Falls.
Investigators found a body in the field dressed in a white dress, the last clothing Ballesteros was known to have worn, and the body had what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the chest, according to an affidavit.
Investigators also got Preville’s cell phone data which indicated it had traveled the same route as Ballesteros’ phone, according to allegations in the affidavit.
Preville was arrested and booked into Wichita County Jail on Thursday, court and jail records show.
This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: A missing woman was found dead. Her ex-boyfriend is charged with murder
Reporting by Lynn Walker, Wichita Falls Times Record News / Wichita Falls Times Record News
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