Man denies stabbing Christina Matos to death, as Raleigh murder case goes to the jury
The murder case against Erick Hernandez-Mendez is now in the hands of jurors, who will decide whether the 23-year-old stabbed his wife in the neck 16 times only days after marrying her for the sake of legal immigration status.
Hernandez-Mendez testified both Monday and Tuesday that he wed Christina Matos, 20, who died in April 2021, as a “sham” in order to stay in the country. He had agreed to pay her $15,000 for the favor.
He said he witnessed Matos’ roommate, Kailey Lynch-Firicano, kill his wife in their Hillsborough Street apartment, then agreed to hide the death and clean up the crime scene because Lynch-Firicano had threatened to hurt his family.
“I needed Christina to be alive more than anything,” Hernandez-Mendez testified Tuesday, adding, “To have her dead doesn’t benefit me.”
But in their final arguments Tuesday, prosecutors emphasized that Hernandez-Mendez had lied to police, Matos’ family and the federal government, and invented his story out of convenience.
Lynch-Firicano was charged as as an accessory to Matos’ murder in 2023, two years after her death, and with obstructing justice. She did not testify in the case, giving Hernandez-Mendez a “scapegoat,” said Assistant District Attorney Matt Lively.
“You should take nothing he has told you as fact,” Lively said. “This is not Kailey Lynch’s trial.”
Matos and Hernandez-Mendez graduated from Clayton High School together and got a marriage license in February 2021 shortly before their March wedding. Police charged him with Matos’ murder shortly afterward in April.
Text messages between them evolved from love messages and conversations about wedding rings to Matos telling the defendant their relationship was “strictly business” and he should stay away from her, evidence from the trial showed. Matos badgered Hernandez-Mendez for the money he promised, prosecutors told jurors.
She became “somebody you owe money to, who wants nothing to do with you, but who still wants to use your bathroom,” Lively said.
She would tell Hernandez-Mendez not to come home because she had other men over, the prosecution argued. While the defendant testified to being gay, prosecutors asked him about pornography on his phone that included both men and women.
“Maybe you’re a little bit jealous,” Lively told jurors.
Hernandez-Mendez admitted on the witness stand that he had lied to police, but said he only lied “about the murder part.”
“I was basically covering up,” he said, adding, “I’m sure you’re not going to be in your right mind if you witnessed a murder. I witnessed Kailey brutally stab one of my best friends.”
Several witnesses afterward described Hernandez-Mendez as a peaceful person who came to the United States with his mother as a very young boy. But he was not eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, known as DACA.
The defense argued that the largely circumstantial case offered no working motive, deflecting the idea that he was jealous and saying the prosecution had narrowed in on Hernandez-Mendez while failing to fully investigate Lynch-Firicano with fingerprints, hair analysis or phone extraction.
“Why haven’t you heard from Kailey?” asked attorney John McWilliam, noting that she was charged after a police debriefing in 2023. “Wouldn’t you love to know what was said?”
Jury deliberations continue Wednesday.
This story was originally published March 12, 2024 at 1:19 PM.