HOUSTON — A Houston woman was sentenced to three decades in prison for luring a man to be attacked with a machete by gang members, then shot and killed, according to the Harris County District Attorney's Office. Police said it was all over a rap battle.
Karla Jackelin Morales, 24, pleaded guilty Friday for her role in the killing of Jose Alfonso Villanueva on July 29, 2018. She made the plea just before a jury was to be selected for her trial.
Investigators said Morales told Villanueva that she was taking him into to woods in Spring to smoke marijuana, but she was really leading him to where five MS-13 gang members were waiting to kill him. They slashed him with a machete and then shot him as he was trying to run away. According to the district attorney's office, they were mad at Villanueva because he “disrespected them in a rap battle.”
Villanueva's body was found a week later.
“This woman knowingly lured an innocent man to be murdered by five MS-13 gang members in the most brutal and depraved manner that you could imagine sending shockwaves and fear throughout the Houston community,” acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations Robert Kurtz said.
All of the gang members in the case have been convicted, according to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office.
Morales was supposed to go to trial in October 2021, but investigators said she cut off her ankle monitor. She was arrested about nine months later in Houston.