A Texas man has been arrested after police say he told them he beat his mother to death during an attempted “exorcism" and sent a photo of her body to friends on Snapchat.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by USA TODAY on Tuesday, Fort Worth Police responded to a house at about 1:30 a.m. on April 18. When they got there, 23-year-old Alexander Taylor Valdez answered the door holding a Bible and had what appeared to be blood on his face, neck, torso, hands and feet, police say in the document.
Valdez walked out and told police that “it was an exorcism” before sitting down on the front porch, the affidavit said. When asked about the blood stains all over his body, Valdez told police he was trying to do “witchcraft," the document says.
“I was doing witchcraft to kill my mom,” Valdez said, according to the document. “There is a dead body in there. It’s my mom.”
According to online records, Valdez is being held on a $750,000 bond and faces a murder charge.
USA TODAY could not immediately contact an attorney representing Valdez as none was listed in online records on Tuesday.
When police entered the house, they found Valdez’s mom, 58-year-old Teresita Sayson, and a dog, both dead in the master bedroom, the affidavit says.
Police said Sayson was found covered in blood with “trauma to the face and upper body.”
The affidavit alleges that Valdez bludgeoned his mother with a “blunt force object" and then sent a picture of his dead mother and dog to his friends via a Snapchat group chat.
Police said one of the friends called 911 and described the photo and directed police to Valdez’s address, where they made the harrowing discovery.
“Officers observed blood, on the wall, carpet, and body of the person in the picture,” the affidavit says.
Also in the bedroom where Sayson's body was found, police found a broken jewelry box that had human hair and blood on it, the affidavit says.
The affidavit says that Valdez did not answer detectives’ questions during a formal interview and requested an attorney.
Fernando Cervantes Jr. is a trending news reporter for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on X @fern_cerv_.
i_ananda on April 23rd, 2025 at 14:17 UTC »
I wish I hadn't read that article.