EDINBURG - A man accused of fatally shooting his 16-year-old girlfriend, burning her body and then abandoning her infant child on the side of a busy Weslaco road nearly two years ago stood before a jury Monday.

Prosecutors allege Samuel Villarreal, 40, killed Aida Mae Rodriguez in November 2006 because she had walked in on him at their Mercedes apartment as he raped a then 13-year-old relative.  But Villarreal’s defense attorneys denied Monday their client played any role in Rodriguez’s death.

The Monitor