RICHMOND, Texas – Valentine Gonzalez is in the Fort Bend County Jail, charged with murder.
The 52-year-old is accused of killing his neighbor, Nancy Dean, and setting her house on fire to cover up the crime.
The incident happened Sept. 3, 2016, in the 5100 block of Cotter Lane in Rosenberg.
By the end of September, police had named Gonzalez a person of interest in the case and were looking for him.
This week, they found him.
Gonzalez said he was living in Mexico and insists he wasn’t running from the law.
“I was working as a guard at a club and making good money.” Gonzalez said.
He also told KPRC he met a woman there and the two were expecting a baby.
He insists he had nothing to do with Dean’s murder and was surprised when investigators came to arrest him.
Gonzalez and Dean lived around the corner from each other, but he told KPRC he didn’t really know her. On the day she died, he admits, he cut her grass and did some handy work around her house.
“I was pretty much done around 6:30 p.m and I went home,” he said.
The day after Dean’s death, Gonzalez said officers with the Rosenberg police department came to interview him and question him about the crime.
“I gave them my clothes from that night, my shoes, a DNA swab. I gave them everything they wanted,” he said.
Gonzalez did 25 years in prison for aggravated sexual assault and was released in 2014.
He thinks that’s why the police are pointing the finger at him for this crime.
“When there’s a crime going on they going to come look at the sex offenders first,” he said. “If you can’t find no one to pin it on, who you gonna pin it on? The sex offender who lives close by so you can close the case up.”
Gonzalez entered a not-guilty plea in the case and said he is prepared to go to trial.
Dean’s family was notified of his arrest and investigators said they are asking for privacy.