Former GCSO deputy arrested in connection to woman's body found in her trunk, police say
The 24-year-old was reported missing on May 6, her friends said.
TEXAS CITY, Texas (KTRK) -- A man was arrested Friday after a 24-year-old's body was found in her trunk in Texas City, according to police.
The video featured above is from a previous report.
On Friday at about 1 p.m., Christopher Lee Maldonado was arrested during a traffic stop in connection to Angela Leaann Mitchell's death after her body was found in the trunk of her own car on May 11.
Texas City Police Department says Maldonado is currently being held in the Galveston County Jail for tampering with evidence with a $200,000 bond.
Galveston County Sheriff's Office confirmed that Maldonado was a former jailer and relieved of duty after being arrested and charged with assault by the TCPD in 2019.
Records show Maldonado later violated a protection order and was sentenced to two days in jail for the assault class c charge.
"She didn't deserve to die," her mother, Georgia Mitchell, said. "She didn't deserve for someone to take her life. She's not a bad person."
Investigators were led to Angela Leaann Mitchell's body after neighbors in the 400 block of 4th Street North called police at about 2:30 p.m. May 11 regarding an odor coming from a white Honda that had been parked for days in the roadway, police said.
ORIGINAL STORY: Body of missing mom found in car trunk in Texas City, police say
The department's criminal investigations and identifications divisions were called out once officers detected the odor from the trunk, which was then opened and contained Angela Leaann Mitchell's body.
People who live nearby said the car had been parked in the same spot since before Mother's Day.
Angela Leaann Mitchell's cause of death remains pending, as of June 10.
Before police released her identity, Angela Leaann Mitchell's friends and family told Eyewitness News that they reported the mother of four children missing on May 6 after she didn't return home to Dickinson the night before.
"It had become 24 hours since my last contact with her," Georgia Mitchell said. "When I tried to find out why she didn't respond to me it went straight to voicemail and I couldn't track her on the locator on our phones anymore. I started getting sick to my stomach."
They had actually tracked her location to Texas City that same day, found her vehicle, but saw no sign of her.
"I met police officers at her vehicle here in Texas City after filing a missing person report and I begged them," Georgia Mitchell said. "I begged them to please search my daughter's car. 'Please search my daughter's car. Please investigate this'. I begged. I begged the police officers and they just dismissed me."
She said she did not suspect that her daughter was in the trunk but said she found it strange where the car was parked.
Shortly after police were called to the 4th Street neighborhood on May 11, Angela Leaann Mitchell's friends and family said they were upset that it took investigators too long to take her case seriously.
A police document said Angela Leaann Mitchell's phone was last pinged to a home in the Lago Mar subdivision just before 10 p.m. on Thursday, May 5, and had not been active since.
Angela Leaann Mitchell was a mother of four: a 9-year-old girl, 7-year-old boy, 3-year-old girl and 7-month-old son.
Georgia Mitchell said her children are too young to understand what is happening. She got upset talking about the 7-month-old who will never know his mother.
"Well he's going to know his mama," the children's grandmother said. "He is, because I am going to make sure. But the fact that he is not going to remember what a wonderful mother he had and how much she loved him -- I am going to make sure that he knows."
