Law&Crime Sidebar - Texas Man Decapitated His Wife Just Months After Wedding

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

3-year-old Jared Dicus is headed to prison after admitting he killed and decapitated his new wife, Anggy Diaz. In the hours after her murder, before anyone knew she was dead, Dicus was seen on a surveillance camera stealing a beer from the store where his wife worked. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber breaks down the grisly case with Houston criminal defense attorney Anthony Osso.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger and Christina FalconeScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. It was a portion of a body dismembered. It was a crime so disturbing. The sheriff of a rural Texas county had trouble even talking about it. A young wife murdered by her new husband just months after they got married. Now that newlywet has learned his fate after admitting to decapitating his wife. We're taking a closer look at this grisly case with Houston Criminal Defense Attorney Anthony Oso.

Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. 23-year-old Jared Dykis will spend at least the next few decades in prison after he entered a guilty plea in Waller County Court out in Texas for the savage murder. of his young wife, Angie Diaz. And I am talking newlyweds here. I want you to listen to this timeline. So Angie and Jared, they got married in October of 2022. In fact, the judge who married them at the courthouse,

Trey Dahan, posted a photo of this happy couple on his Facebook page, commemorating what was supposed to be a very happy occasion. You know what? The two appeared happy, at least on social media. Angie often posted photos of the couple together On a Christmas photo post, Jared commented, Merry Christmas, my beautiful wife, my trophy.

But then just a few weeks later, in January of 2023, deputies get a call about a death near Magnolia, which is about an hour outside of Houston. And when police arrive, there were two homes on the property. There's a main house, and then there's a smaller cabin. Dicus' parents lived in the main home while he and Angie lived behind them. And in the smaller home, first responders find Angie's body. Decapit.

And to give you just a sense of how heinous this crime scene was, even the Waller County Sheriff had a hard time, even putting into words when he spoke with reporters that day about the remains and what that scene looked like. It was a portion of a body dismembered and a residence that was covered in a residence that was covered in a. blood. It's a gruesome scene at best. According to the sheriff, a large kitchen knife was likely the murder weapon in this case. Deputies immediately took Dykis into custody, but apparently he didn't make a statement immediately, but then he later confessed to police that he did in fact kill Angie. And on July 31st, Jared Dykis pled guilty to the murder of his wife, Angie Diaz, and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison as part of a plea deal, which we're going to get into. But I want to bring in right now, Houston attorney Anthony Oso.

Anthony, thanks so much for coming back here on Sidebar to talk about this case. By the way, in your community, in your state, were people talking about this case? Did it get a lot of attention? Because it's pretty disgusting and pretty heinous. Absolutely. Anytime that you've got a decapitation and a dismemberment type of murder in a demand. violence setting, that's going to make waves. And in a county like Waller or a smaller county outside of Houston, it's definitely not an everyday crime you're going to hear about. So it was

definitely, it definitely made the news. By the way, have you seen, we talk about violence and relationships all the time, but newlyweds, how often do you see that? You know, it's not, it's not uncommon. I actually tried a case where, you know, the defendant was the, was the fiance, And four days after they had gotten engaged, he murdered her. So it's not, I mean, murder is not common, but it is increasing. And at least in a domestic violence setting. So, I mean, it's not unheard of to see that. By the way, I always say it, but thank you for letting us bring you these stories.

Because as heinous as these crimes are, they are important stories to tell. And we're able to do that because of the incredible support that we get from our sponsors. Like the sponsor of today's episode, Morgan and Morgan. This is America's largest injury law firm with over a thousand attorneys. Yeah, they have secured many multi-million dollar verdicts and settlements across the country, hence why they are so big. And when you work with one of these attorneys, you also get a dedicated army that includes a legal team, case investigators, paralegals, customer case specialists, all focused on maximizing your settlement. The whole process can be done from your smartphone. There's no upfront fee.

You only pay them if you win. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at For The People. com slash lc sidebar such an alarming thing to say and um you know unfortunately i'm covering a lot of cases about this but this one stood out not only because of the heinous nature of it but they were just married they seemed happy now police they haven't released a motive to be clear about this but there were concerns at the beginning of the investigation that dikes might not be competent to stand trial plea or no plea so the court sent him for a competency evaluation was deemed to be of sound mind. So he was allowed to enter this plea of this guilty plea in

exchange for 40 years confinement. And as part of the plea agreement, he waived his right to appeal the verdict, the sentence, any potential defense to prosecution, such as an insanity defense. Additionally, he's waived any post-conviction writs of habeas corpus. And he's not going to be eligible for parole until 2043. The district attorney says their office consulted with Angie's family before they settled on the plea agreement, which I have a lot of questions about. But first, just talk to me, Anthony. 40 years is a long time.

But is that justice for what he did here? You know, I don't think you can equate or put a number on what Angie's life is worth, especially not if you're her family members. But like you said, Jesse, I think 40 years is a long time. And in Texas, you've got to serve at least half of your sentence for 30 years, whatever is less on a 3G offense, which is a violent crime like murder. So it's going to be a long time before he's even eligible for parole. And I can guarantee you that he's not making parole before doing around 80% of his time in the state of Texas. In other words, you don't think when

2043 rolls around 20 years from now, he's going to be let out. No, not on a crime like this. Yeah. I get, look, you say what, there's no price that can be put on Andrew's life. You're 100%. Some people would say life for life. He should spend the rest of his life in prison. He's should never even have the opportunity to get out because he'd be in his 60s, right? He'd be in his 60s by the time he could get out, which is not something that Angie gets. She doesn't get a second shot at life. And again, I find it interesting to think about that because, and as far as our reporting and our research indicated, the family knows about the deal.

They were consulted. I can't get a definitive answer if they agreed with it or not. And how, in your experience, how much do prosecutors take what the family wants, what the victim's family wants in a plea deal like this? I think in a case like this, they're absolutely going to consider what the family says. They're also victims in this. But it's not the family's final sale. It's the prosecutor's job to look at the case and determine what the issues involved are. And anytime you're going to trial on a case, there's risk.

you know here you've got an admission you've got him showing up at her place at work on surveillance video and so it seems like it's a it's an easy win for the state but a good defense team could really draw out a possible insanity defense in this case that is what i want to talk to you about because aside from the fact of can we spare the time and expense of a trial can we spare angie's family from having to listen to these gruesome details can we spare first responders and police from having to testify about what they saw. Can we spare a jury from having to see what would be incredibly gruesome photos and incredibly gruesome detail? I can understand why there's a plea, but the mental health defense, I wonder if that was a concern for prosecutors. And I want to

table that for one second. We'll talk about it. But let me just focus a little bit on Angie, because what do we know about Angie? So the 21-year-old was originally from Nicaragua. She'd been in the United States for about three years. Her friend said she'd been working two jobs. You know why? so that she could send money back to Nicaragua to pay for a relative's cancer treatment. That just kind of shows you what kind of person Angie was. Now, Angie worked at this local Hispanic butcher shop, which also seemed to serve food. It acted as a kind of convenience store.

Now, unbelievably, the same day that Dykis killed Angie, he stopped by the shop where she worked. Surveillance video from the store shows him parking out front, walking inside and grabbing a beer from the cooler. And according to the sheriff's office, he didn't pay for his beer. No, instead he walks out with a beer, starts to drink it in the parking lot. Again, after he murders Angie, and the police investigation revealed this was a short time after he killed Angie, but before his parents were alerted to what was going on.

So I have to ask here, Anthony, if you're looking at this, this may be why prosecutors agreed to a deal. If he can just nonchalantly walk to her place of business, grab a beer, walk out. A, you could say it's incredibly chilling. It shows how cold and evil he is. Or you could say, my gosh, this shows that he's not in his right mind. And maybe prosecutors were concerned about the success of a mental health defense. What's your take? Absolutely.

If I'm the defense attorney in this case, I'm going to hone in on the fact that he goes and gets a beer from the place she works and doesn't pay for it after. The law to prove insanity in the state of Texas is just showing that a defendant doesn't have recognition of the consequences of their actions. So when I'm trying murder cases and I'm worried about insanity, I want to see things like, did he clean the mess up? Did he try and hide the body? Things that show that he's trying to stay out of trouble. We don't have that here. We've got the defendant going to replace a work and stealing a beer, not even stealing a beer, just grabbing a beer out of the fridge and starting to drink it. It's not in line with someone that's worried about the consequences.

of their actions. But generally speaking, it would have been really, really tough. And you tell me in Texas, especially, to mount a mental health defense and insanity defense, right? I think with this type of gruesome crime, it's always going to be tough to get jurors to wrap their head around the fact that he's not guilty when he's so blatantly dismembered an innocent victim, absolutely. But all it takes is one, Jesse.

And so I think that that's something that the defense really. probably leaned in on in the pretrial negotiations and that the prosecutors recognized when they decided to come to that agreement. Just a heinous crime. And it's a heinous crime. And I mentioned this that we don't have entirely clear confirmation from the family about how exactly they feel about this deal. But I will tell you, one of Angie's aunts posted a tribute to this young woman on Facebook.

And she said, and this was according to the site's English translation, quote, I know many are waiting for what was said in court. The boy was given 40 years. May God be with him and give him peace, as well as with the world around us. She's no longer here, and so God decided. Today, I would like to say, as some say, I'm closing this chapter of my life, but I'll really continue to miss her. And you remember the judge who married Dicus and Angie? He actually posted on Facebook after this savage killing, saying, quote, I'm sure many of you have heard about an occurrence yesterday in the Oak Hollow area of Waller County where a young man was arrested in charge with murdering his wife. This involved a young couple that I married

in October of 2022. During my short time with them, they were a very nice young people. As many of you know, I'm greatly sad and in shock by the news of this tragic event, and my prayers are with the families. Out of respect for the families, I have taken down my photo with the couple and the post announcing their marriage, primarily due to the insensitive nature of some comments that were being made on that post. What do you make of that, Anthony? I mean, I think that inevitably there's a sense of guilt, but it's absolutely not his fault. And, you know, you can't foresee things like this. I think it just goes to show that when you meet somebody, you've really got to take the time to vet them out and make sure that it's someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with. But again,

I don't think you can foresee this kind of behavior. And I don't know that there were any prior domestic violence situations in this case that would lead one to think that Dicus was capable of this heinous act. And I always say for people who are on trial, for the most heinous crime, murder, right? And there's their argument, oh, they have no criminal history and they've ever done it. They have to start somewhere. And sometimes it's even the people you least expect who end up committing one of the worst crimes you can imagine.

And here, this is what happened. And, you know, as I listen to the words of her family, I have to say, Anthony, how do you, what do you even tell the family about? how they can move on from this and how they can make sense of what happened here. Because I have to imagine any development in court is going to be difficult for them, but how does a family move on from a tragedy like this? It's extremely difficult. And what I would say to family members that have gone through something like this

that went through things like this or that, you know, this is never going to remove all the pain or sadness you're going to feel, but it is a closing of a chapter and it's the starting process for you to move on. Anytime you've got an open court case, it just makes it really hard to continue the grieving process. And so it's just one step and a lifelong process. Well, as we said, Dicus won't be eligible for parole until at least 2043. As we said, you know, the Board of Pardon Sparles would be in charge of determining whether he can get out. But as Anthony said, it seems very, very unlikely. Family can protest that too at the parole. So I'd imagine they will. I imagine they

well. But Anthony Oso, thanks so much for coming on. I appreciate giving your perspective on again. So it's just such a sad, sad case. Thanks for having me, Jesse. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this law and crime series, ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.