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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2012-12-11 Euless Articles DISTRIBUTED TO: PAGE / OF MAYOR CITY CNCL CITY ATTNY SUTTER MCKAMIE BROWN YOUNG ANIMAL GVT McDONALD COLLINS W. RHODES GETCHELL LIBRARY ADMIN LIBRARY REF HARTSELL DATE DISTRIBUTED Ia/Io /i DATE OF ARTICLE/ /3 O/a NEWSPAPER FWST Six months later, Euless teen's death ruled homicide Posted Sunday, Dec.02, 2012 Updated Sunday, Dec. 02, 2012 FORT WORTH --A teen found dead near her Euless apartment in May after she was reported missing by her father was strangled, according to a final ruling by the Tarrant County medical examiner's office. In a finding that took more than six months, the medical examiner said that Ashley Valladares, 19, was strangled, and her death was ruled a homicide. The ruling was released late last week. Authorities said they took so long to make the ruling because of the condition of Valladares' body. "There was decomposition," Linda Anderson, a spokeswoman with the medical examiner's office, said in a recent interview. Jamil Valladares, Ashley's father, said Sunday that the ruling comes as no surprise. "As a father, I knew deep down inside that someone had killed her,"Jamil Valladares said in a telephone interview. "It's been very frustrating." He said no one has been arrested in the case. Euless police could not be reached Sunday. Ashley Valladares was last seen May 4 by her boyfriend, who told Euless police that he left the apartment the two shared after an argument. When he returned a few hours later, Ashley Valladares was gone,the boyfriend told Euless police. Her body was found May 18 in a stand of trees about 150 yards from one side of the apartment complex where Valladares lived with her boyfriend in the 300 block of South Industrial Boulevard in Euless. Jamil Valladares said Sunday that his daughter was found with some of her clothes and a blanket. "It's like someone just dumped her there,"Jamil Valladares said. The night Ashley vanished, she and her boyfriend argued about whether she should give a haircut to a man who showed up at their door at 11:30 p.m. May 4, the boyfriend told police. Ashley cut hair to supplement her income from a job at a Euless KFC restaurant, about a mile from her apartment. The boyfriend told the Star-Telegram in an interview that he told Ashley to cut the man's hair another time, but she told him she needed the money to pay rent. DISTRIBUTED TO: PAGE ` ' OF MAYOR CITY CNCL CITY ATTNY SUTTER MCKAMIE BROWN YOUNG ANIMAL CVT McDONALD COLLINSW. RHODES GETCHELL LIBRARY ADMIN LIBRARY REF HARTSELL �} DATE DISTRIBUTED ! 0 /f( /� DATE OF ARTICLE / / /i( NEWSPAPER FWST The boyfriend told police that he walked out of the apartment with Ashley clutching his shirt, trying to stop him from leaving. He said he returned about 2 a.m., and neither Ashley nor the man who had come for the haircut were there. When police asked him what he thought had happened, the boyfriend said that Ashley "probably ran off with another guy." But friends and family said she would not have left without her purse, clothes, paycheck and cellphone. Euless police had made calls to the couple's apartment before the woman's disappearance. On April 29, a Euless police officer went to the apartment in response to a domestic disturbance call. The police report said Ashley Valladares acknowledged that she had torn up the apartment and cut her finger on some broken glass. She told the officer that she was angry because she found text messages from another woman on her boyfriend's cellphone. The officer determined that no assault had occurred. When police returned May 6 in response to her father's missing-person report, an officer found dried blood on the apartment walls, apparently from her cut finger April 29. Jamil Valladares said he hasn't talked to his daughter's boyfriend in months. "I just want someone arrested for this," he said Sunday. "I don't know when that will happen." This report contains information from Star-Telegram archives. Domingo Ramirez Jr. DISTRIBUTED TO: PAGE / OF MAYOR CITY CNCL CITY ATTNY SUTTER MCKAMIE BROWN YOUNG ANIMAL CNT ;1IcDONALD COLLINS /W RHODES GETCHELL LIBRARY ADMIN LIBRARY REF HARTSELL/ DATE DISTRIBUTED Ia f ' I 1 DATE OF ARTICLE /a /911 ` ` NEWSPAPER FWST Euless leaders remain optimistic that Glade Park will go forward Posted Sunday, Dec. 09, 2012 tevans@star-telegram.com EULESS-- Mayor Mary Lib Saleh believes the Glade Parks project is proof that patience is a virtue every city official needs. "That piece of property was up for sale when I was elected in 1989," Saleh said. "Someday it will develop. I have good vibes on it." There are encouraging signs that the wait is almost over for the 193-acre development along Texas 121, between Glade and Cheek-Sparger roads near the Colleyville border. Raising Cane's opened recently and Rosa's Cafe will open soon on the freeway's frontage road. Also, apartments are under construction on Heritage Avenue. "The first units will be ready for occupancy by May 2013," said Scott Sherwood with JLB Partners, which is building the apartments. That's music to the ears of a city that invested $12.1 million in late 2010 to build Heritage Avenue--the development's western boundary--and other infrastructure needed before the community of residences, retailers and restaurants could rise from the clay. Euless is counting on increased property tax revenue from the development to pay off the bonds it issued. The 417 apartments that will be for rent when the last building is finished by the end of 2013 will be from 700 to 1,600 square feet, Sherwood said. "We are still discussing the name for the community," Sherwood said. It "will incorporate one-, two-and three-bedroom floor plans." Rubloff Development Group of Rockford, Ill., predicted in 2010 that its Glade Parks project would be as grand as Southlake Town Square. But it had barely gotten the project started before a pall was cast on the development. Rubloff subsidiary and Glade Parks developer Glade 121 filed for Chapter 11 protection to forestall foreclosure in April.A hearing in Illinois Northern Bankruptcy Court has been postponed a time or two. Glade 121's counsel, Rockford, Ill., attorney Thomas E. Laughlin, had no comment. However, Euless officials believe a resolution is near, Saleh said. "We think by the end of the year we'll know something for sure," she said. "The restaurants are going in fine, the condos are going in fine. We should have a good story by the end of the year." There's no reason to believe that Glade Parks will be anything less than the grand design introduced in a video shown during the September 2007 "State of the Cities" breakfast, said Euless City Manager Gary DISTRIBUTED TO: PAGE OF MAYOR CITY CNCL CITY ATTNY SLITTER MCKAMIE BROWN YOUNG ANIMAL CVT McDONALD COLLINS W. RHODES GETCHELL LIBRARY ADMIN LIBRARY REF HARTSELL DATE DISTRIBUTED I a // / / `� DATE OF ARTICLE I c; I / Ci /1 NEWSPAPER FWST McKamie. It involves a complex of condos, town homes, shops, eateries and offices on streets radiating from a clock tower and featuring several fountains and a bridge over Little Bear Creek. "The million-dollar question is when it will happen," McKamie said. "We look for additional retail construction in the next 12 months, a combination of stores and restaurants." Just look at The Shops at Vineyard Village, Glade Parks' neighbor across Texas 121, to see the project's future, Saleh said. "People are waiting in line to get into that development it's doing so well," she said. That's part of why there's never been a doubt that the Glade Parks project will go forward, McKamie said. "The project itself will go forward no matter what," he said. "The emphasis is on businesses and jobs--thriving businesses creating jobs."