Maria Reyna Navarro, a 32-year-old Hispanic woman and mother of three, was found dead on June 17, 1995, in Buck Sansom Park in Fort Worth, Texas. At the time of her death, she had been visiting friends in the area from her home in Corpus Christi. Her sister, Claudia Soliz-Lara, recalled that the last contact with Maria was a phone call on the morning of June 16, during which Maria said she was on her way home.
That call would be the last time her family heard from her.
The following morning, Maria Reyna Navarro’s partially nude body was discovered in the park. According to investigators, she had been struck in the head and strangled. The brutal nature of the crime and the lack of immediate leads left the case unsolved for a decade. However, in 2005, a breakthrough came when DNA evidence collected from the crime scene was matched to a man named Juan Mesa Segundo through a national database.
Juan Mesa Segundo, who was 42 years old at the time of the arrest, was already in custody for the 1986 rape and murder of 11-year-old Vanessa Villa. The DNA match linked him directly to the sexual assault and murder of 32-year-old Hispanic woman Maria Reyna Navarro. Segundo had a criminal history that included prior convictions for crimes against women and had served time in prison. He was arrested and charged with capital murder in connection with Navarro’s death.
Authorities also began re-examining several other unsolved homicides of women in the Fort Worth area between 1986 and 1995 to determine if Segundo could be connected to those cases as well. Despite being sentenced to death for the 1986 case, Segundo’s sentence was later commuted to life in prison due to changes in the legal definition of intellectual disability. This decision vacated the opportunity to try him for the additional murders, including that of Maria Reyna Navarro, although the DNA evidence firmly linked him to the crime.
