DALLAS — A Dallas County jury on Thursday sentenced 24-year-old Ruben Alvarado to 37 years in prison for the June 2019 murder of Chynal Lindsey, a Black transgender woman.
The unanimous verdict was reached after about three hours of deliberations.
The same jury on Wednesday convicted Alvarado for the brutal beating and strangling of the 26-year-old Lindsey, whose body was pulled from White Rock Lake on June 1, 2019.
During the trial, jurors were presented crime scene evidence and autopsy reports showing that a belt was around Lindsey’s neck when her body was pulled from the lake, and that she had suffered multiple injuries, including brain hemorrhaging.
Alvarado testified Tuesday that he picked up Lindsey from Arlington in the early hours of June 1 to have sex with her. He said they drove to White Rock Lake after going to his apartment in Mesquite to charge his phone.
Alvarado testified that he killed Lindsey moments after figuring out that she was transgender. Upon the realization, he testified, he confronted Lindsey. She then climbed on top of him and he got scared, he said. He testified that he was able to get on top of her, started punching her and took off his belt and placed it around her neck.
Autopsy reports presented to jurors stated that Lindsey had fractures in her neck. Prosecutors said those injuries may have come from the belt.
Jurors had the option to sentence Alvarado for a crime of “sudden passion,” or a crime provoked in the heat of the moment. Prosecutors said during closing statements of the punishment phase that Alvarado had time to think about placing the belt around Lindsey’s neck, and that the crime itself was not sudden.
“They were deliberate, they were hateful,” prosecutor LaQuita Long said. “He discarded her body like trash.”
Defense attorney Richard Franklin told jurors that Alvarado had a “lousy” childhood after being abandoned by his mother. His sister, Elizabeth Rodriguez, told the jury that Alvarado was the only person that has shown her love and that she would always welcome him back to her home.
“What he did was not good at all, but he’s not a monster,” Franklin said.
But prosecutor Melody Louis told jurors that many people have difficult childhoods and that Alvarado needs to be accountable for the choices he made. Louis said he needed a large sentence to keep the community safe.
“You can’t let him out,” she said to the jury, adding that he needs to be in prison long enough so that when he is released, he needs to be “too old to kill somebody.”
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