800 people sought for jury pool in McAllen death penalty trial

Carlos Antonio Cardenas

The attorney representing a 29-year-old Alamo man accused of a bloody stabbing that left two men dead at a McAllen Motel 6 filed a motion requesting a pool of 800 potential jurors for his death penalty trial.

O. Rene Flores, who represents Carlos Antonio Cardenas, filed the motion Wednesday.

Cardenas is accused of killing 45-year-old Virginia resident Keith Henry Cole and 42-year-old San Juan resident Luis Eduardo Garza on March 18, 2023.

Garza was found on the ground in the southeast parking lot while Cole was found on a second floor hallway near a stairwell to the pool.

Both men had multiple stab wounds.

Cardenas is charged with capital murder of multiple persons and attempted murder.

Prosecutors notified his attorneys of their intent to seek the death penalty on March 25, 2024.

The stabbings happened at the hotel on 700 W. Expressway 83 at around 4:35 a.m. where police found the bodies of Cole and Garza. They also encountered Cardenas, who was covered in blood and holding a knife.

One of the responding officers wrote in an affidavit for Cardenas’ arrest that he was soaked in blood “from his face to his shoes” outside the front office of the hotel where he was poking the window with a black foldable knife trying to gain entry.

When he was put in handcuffs, police said he spoke incoherently and refused to identify himself, saying an unknown “they” would hear it, according to the affidavit.

The stabbings were caught on surveillance video, according to the affidavit, which showed Cardenas and an unidentified man walk out of hotel room 220 at around 4:35 a.m. The other man drove away and left Cardenas at the hotel.

A brutal and chaotic scene unfolded at Motel 6 in McAllen on Saturday, March 18, 2023, when officers responded to a distress call from the front desk attendant. (Delcia Lopez | dlopez@themonitor.com)

The affidavit said that as Cardenas walked back to the room, he saw Cole walking with a backpack on the second floor hallway. The men were seen talking when Cole tried to walk away before Cardenas attacked him, according to the affidavit.

Cardenas then gave the backpack to someone in a black parked car that had arrived at 4:35 a.m. Authorities said that is when Cardenas saw Garza by another vehicle where he attacked the man.

Cardenas then went to the front office and spoke with the attendant who was behind a locked glass partition.

“Something happened, somebody got killed,” Cardenas told the attendant, according to the affidavit.

He also claimed someone was trying to kill him before kicking the glass partition.

The attendant called 9-1-1 and escaped.

After his arrest, Cardenas saw the attendant and yelled out, “I saved you. I saved you.”

His next hearing is June 11. A trial date has not yet been scheduled.

Cardenas remains jailed in the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center on a total of $906,000 in bonds.

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