After nearly three years, Christopher Lee Maldonado was convicted of evidence tampering to impair a human corpse and sentenced to five years in prison, with the judge later reducing his sentence to community supervision for ten years.
On Monday, a Galveston County jury found Maldonado guilty of a felony count of tampering with or fabricating evidence with intent to impair a human corpse, a second-degree felony that carries a penalty of two to twenty years in prison.
The case centers on the disappearance of Angela Mitchell in 2022, a woman who was reported missing soon after she failed to pick up her infant son on May 6. Just days later, detectives from the Texas City Police Department discovered her car near Maldonado’s home. Authorities later determined that Mitchell was a sex worker, and that, based on location services and cell phone messages, Maldonado was allegedly her last client.
Maldonado was originally indicted in 2022, but in 2024, the charges were refiled with a new indictment. The charge specified that Maldonado, knowing full well about the ongoing investigation into Mitchell’s disappearance, intentionally concealed her body to impede the investigation and prevent the corpse from being used as evidence.
By the time authorities recovered Mitchell’s body, it was so severely decomposed that the medical examiner could not determine a cause of death. The only things that could be ruled out were natural causes and drug overdose, leaving the circumstances of her death largely unknown.
One of Maldonado’s associates testified that he was paid $200 by Maldonado to move a vehicle, unaware that Mitchell’s body was concealed in the trunk.
After his conviction on Monday, Maldonado’s sentencing took place the following day. Despite the severity of his crime, the jury handed down a relatively light sentence: five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. However, Galveston County Judge Jeth Jones issued a decision to suspend Maldonado’s confinement entirely. Instead, he was placed on ten years of community supervision, also called probation.
Maldonado is still facing a separate felony charge related to a January 2022 incident in which he reportedly strangled his ex-wife. She testified during the evidence tampering trial, describing Maldonado as manipulative and controlling.
