A Houston man who secretly tracked his girlfriend's car and bugged her bedroom before fatally stabbing her at her workplace has been sentenced to 45 years in prison. Santos Hernandez Cornejo, 53, was sentenced for the June 2025 killing of 50-year-old Argelia Diaz Maya, who worked as a dishwasher at Burnin' Shell restaurant on Wilcrest Drive.
According to court records cited by ABC13 Houston, Cornejo believed Diaz Maya was having an affair and had placed a listening device in her bedroom as well as a tracking device on her car. Authorities described the killing as calculated and very aggressive, per the same report. Houston police say the confrontation began outside the restaurant before turning deadly inside.
Per a City of Houston news release, HPD Homicide Division Sergeant M. Cass and Detective J. Brown determined that the fatal encounter started as a parking lot argument at 6968 Wilcrest Drive around 12:10 a.m. on June 14, 2025, before Cornejo chased Diaz Maya into the business. Diaz Maya ran back inside the restaurant, but Cornejo followed with a knife concealed behind his back and stabbed her, according to ABC13's account of court records. She suffered multiple stab wounds and was pronounced dead at the scene by Houston Fire Department paramedics, according to FOX 26 Houston.
Surrender and Initial Charges
Cornejo called police after the stabbing and turned himself in, and he was arrested without incident, court records show. Authorities recovered the stabbing weapon from a nearby field, ABC13 reported. He was formally charged with murder in Harris County's 230th State District Court under Houston Police Department Incident #077641125, per the city's news release.
A magistrate initially set Cornejo's bail at $350,000, though a judge later lowered it to $50,000, and federal authorities placed an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer on him, according to Law & Crime. Cornejo, a Salvadoran national, had lived in Houston for nearly 17 years, the outlet noted. His attorney highlighted his voluntary surrender and cooperation with investigators, ABC13 reported.
What a 45-Year Sentence Actually Means
Under Texas Government Code § 508.145(d), murder is classified as an aggravated “3g” felony, meaning Cornejo must serve at least half of his sentence in actual calendar time before he can be considered for parole, with no reduction for good conduct time, according to the Texas Legislature's parole statute. That means Cornejo will need to serve a minimum of 22.5 calendar years before a parole board even reviews his case. Given the ICE detainer reported by Law & Crime during his booking, any eventual parole release would likely trigger deportation proceedings back to El Salvador.
The surveillance tactics described in court records also carry their own legal weight under Texas law, even though they were absorbed into the murder case rather than charged separately. Texas Penal Code § 16.06 makes installing a tracking device on someone's vehicle without consent a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in county jail and a $4,000 fine. But when unauthorized tracking becomes part of a repeated pattern that causes a reasonable person to fear bodily injury or death, Texas Penal Code § 42.072 elevates the conduct to felony stalking, carrying two to ten years in state prison.
A Pattern Seen Across Harris County
The case fits a broader and troubling pattern in the region. The Texas Council on Family Violence's “Honoring Texas Victims” report found that Harris County recorded 38 intimate partner fatalities in 2023, the highest total of any county in the state that year. Statewide, the same report documented 205 intimate partner and stalking fatalities in 2023, with female victims accounting for 179 of those deaths.
While firearms were involved in more than 65% of Texas intimate partner homicides that year, sharp force instruments like knives were the second most common method, according to the council's data. Diaz Maya's death adds to that grim tally, underscoring how frequently secret surveillance — a bedroom recorder, a hidden car tracker — precedes fatal violence in intimate partner cases across the county.
