SAN ANTONIO – A man being tried on charges he beat his ex-girlfriend to death, then dumped her body and set it ablaze, insisted he didn't kill her, but his sister told officials a different story about what happened.
In an interview with sheriff’s detectives, Antonio Nunez, 63, insisted he did not kill Lisa Carter, 47, his ex-girlfriend, but his sister told them that he admitted to the murder to her and that he set Carter’s body on fire.
Carter's burning body was found alongside the 8200 block of W.W. White Road in the predawn hours of Aug. 17, 2015. She remained unidentified until December 2016, when authorities discovered who she was through a fingerprint match.
The following January, Nunez was arrested and charged with murdering Carter based in part of what his sister told detectives.
“He mentioned to her that he killed Carter, which is Lisa,” Bexar County sheriff’s Detective John Perez told the jury Thursday during Nunez’s murder trial. “He told her also that he used gasoline to pour on (Carter) and set her on fire.”
In an interview with detectives, which was recorded and played for the jury, Nunez claimed it was simply a misunderstanding between him and his sister.
“My sister, she doesn’t understand the way that I talk,” Nunez told Perez. “Maybe she misunderstood what I was trying to say.”
Nunez claimed that he and Carter had argued over her drug use and her insistence that men, whom she had snitched on to police, were after her. Nunez explained that he called those men "the wolves."
“I didn’t kill her. I threw her out,” Nunez said. “What I’m trying to say is, I threw her out to the wolves. That’s what I meant.”
“I killed her by throwing her out,” he added.
During his opening statement Tuesday, Nunez’s lawyer, John Economidy, told the jury that it was those men – people on whom Carter had snitched while working as a police confidential informant – who were the killers.
If he is found guilty, Nunez faces a maximum punishment of life in prison. Closing arguments before Judge Laura Parker are set for Friday in Felony Impact Court.