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No death penalty sought in Dallas beheading case
Defendant remains charged with capital murder and faces life without parole if convicted.
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Malvika Choudhary - Wed, 15, Jul 2026
- 16:35 EDT
- 61
Yordanis Cobos-Martinez and Chandra Mouli Nagamallaiah / Lalit K Jha
Dallas County prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against the man accused of beheading Indian-origin motel manager Chandra Nagamallaiah in Texas last year.
District Attorney John Creuzot filed a notice of intent stating that the state will not pursue capital punishment against Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, 37, who remains charged with capital murder in the killing of Nagamallaiah.
Also Read: No death penalty for Dallas beheading suspect
The filing does not state why prosecutors decided against seeking the death penalty. If convicted, Cobos-Martinez faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole under Texas law.
The decision comes nearly 10 months after Nagamallaiah, 50, was killed at the Downtown Suites motel on Samuell Boulevard in East Dallas, where both he and Cobos-Martinez worked. Nagamallaiah, originally from Bengaluru, Karnataka, had moved to the United States with his family in 2020 and managed the motel.
According to investigators, Cobos-Martinez was cleaning a motel room with a co-worker when Nagamallaiah instructed them not to use a broken washing machine. Authorities said Cobos-Martinez became angry after the victim communicated through the co-worker instead of speaking to him directly.
The arrest affidavit states that surveillance footage showed Cobos-Martinez leaving the room, retrieving a machete and repeatedly attacking Nagamallaiah. Police allege the victim ran toward the motel office, where his wife and son were present, but Cobos-Martinez continued the assault, ultimately decapitating him.
Investigators said he then placed Nagamallaiah's severed head in a trash can and was wearing a blood-soaked T-shirt when officers arrested him at the scene.
A Dallas County grand jury indicted Cobos-Martinez on a capital murder charge in November 2025. The indictment alleges he intentionally caused Nagamallaiah's death "by stabbing and by cutting and by chopping" using multiple weapons, including a knife, an axe, a machete and another sharp object.
Prosecutors also allege the killing occurred while Cobos-Martinez was committing or attempting to commit a robbery.
Court records show Cobos-Martinez has a criminal history spanning theee states. He was previously arrested on vehicle theft charges in Florida and later in California in connection with an alleged attempted carjacking.
In Texas, he was arrested in Harris County in 2018 on an indecency with a child charge that was later dismissed for insufficient evidence. He was also charged with aggravated assault after allegedly breaking a jailer's jaw and, in 2023, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault before being extradited to California.
There, he was acquitted of carjacking but convicted of false imprisonment and placed on probation, which prosecutors say he later violated.
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