A Texas man will serve the remainder of his life in jail for killing his girlfriend and disposing of her body in a field as payback for her filing allegations of domestic abuse against him.
For the 2016 murder of 32-year-old Amalia Alexander on September 19, 2016, Jarvis Earl Hickerson, 40, was given a life sentence without the possibility of release, according to a press statement issued by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg on Wednesday.
The victim’s family endured a protracted search for justice due to their agony over the horrific murder and an equally protracted wait for any form of closure.
“He took her body far away and left her there to rot,” Laura Alexander, Amalia’s sister, stated in 2023. “Left her there to rot and let the animals tear her apart. Think about that.”
In response to the delay, Ogg stated, “Eight years is too long for anyone to have to wait for justice, but our Domestic Violence Division was able to get life without parole, which was the appropriate sentence.”
“This case is horrible and shows exactly why we take every allegation of domestic violence so seriously – too often it escalates to homicide,” she continued.
Days after Alexander filed an assault complaint and a protective order against Hickerson for assault after he hit her at an IHOP restaurant in north Houston where they were dining, prosecutors said, the sequence of events that culminated in the carnage started.
Authorities stated that Hickerson killed Alexander in her Houston apartment and disposed of her body in a field in Montgomery County, more than 40 miles north of Houston, after trying to persuade her to drop the charges—even offering to keep her from testifying against him.
Head of the DA’s Domestic Violence Division Mary McFaden said, “His begging and manipulation didn’t work – because Amalia was strong.” He murdered her in reprisal because he knew at that moment that she would not back down.
Alexander was last seen with Hickerson on September 19, 2016, following their departure from a family member’s home. This was the start of the sequence of events that ultimately led to Alexander’s death.
When the woman failed to show up for work the next day, her family filed a missing-person complaint, according to the authorities.
According to a news release from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, Hickerson stated he had no idea where Alexander was or how she had departed the region.
Her skeletal remains were discovered by investigators on November 30, 2016, in a field in Montgomery County, in a shallow burial. Investigators were directed to that spot by cell phone data, according to local news outlet.
In the end, Hickerson was charged with capital murder in connection with the case while he was incarcerated for breaking a protection order that had been imposed on him during a domestic violence dispute with Alexander earlier that year.
He was seen leaving her apartment on the day she vanished, according to prosecutors, and his cellphone records indicated he was in the vicinity where her remains were discovered two days in a row after she vanished.
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Before she vanished, Hickerson’s vehicle, which had a big object in the bed, was spotted driving into and out of her apartment building.
Hickerson choked a new woman and interfered with his GPS ankle monitor when he was out on bond in the murder case. Prosecutors added that he was taken into custody again on April 6, 2021, and has stayed there ever since.
According to the victim’s GoFundMe page, she decided to work with the elderly as a vocation to “express her gift of generosity and kindness.”
