Capital murder charges dismissed in 2019 murder-for-hire plot

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) — Two suspects in a murder-for-hire case now have their capital murder charges dismissed.

KSAT-12 reports Christina Rodriguez and her husband, Manuel Cantu, had capital murder charges dropped on Monday due to insufficient evidence, according to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.

The couple was arrested, along with John Cantu, Rodriguez’s brother-in-law, after Mike Perez was found dead on a South Side road in 2019.

Rodriguez was accused of hiring her husband and brother-in-law to kill Perez for $500. John Cantu was sentenced to 70 years in prison after he was found guilty of Perez’s murder, but after he was also initially charged with capital murder.

During John Cantu’s trial in September, a woman named Carmen Hernandez testified that she had watched Rodriguez planning the murder, paying Cantu the $500, and also saw the murder go down.

Cantu was found guilty of shooting Perez, but the Bexar County DA maintains there was insufficient evidence to put Rodriguez and Manuel Cantu on trial for capital murder. Manuel Cantu was given an 8-year plea deal for tampering with a human corpse.

Rodriguez has reportedly been released from jail.

KSAT-12 also reports Andrew Fields, lead prosecutor in the case, resigned from the District Attorney’s Office, which put the case in the hands of new prosecutors.