Background: The Bitez restaurant in Herndon, Virginia, where authorities say the suspect and victim worked (WTTG/YouTube). Inset left: Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos (Fairfax County Police Department). Inset right: Carmen Lizet Puch (GoFundMe).
More details have come out in the Virginia case of a 19-year-old who allegedly killed his co-worker, with a witness apparently suggesting an affair was at the root of it all.
Alexis Antonio Cedillos-Campos is charged with second-degree murder in the death of 42-year-old Carmen Lizet Puch.
Cedillos-Campos and Puch worked together at the Herndon, Virginia, location of Bitez, a food chain that boasts it is "more than a restaurant; we're a place of gathering, where food serves as a bridge between cultures and creates memorable moments."
The two had an "intimate relationship," Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis said.
At about midnight on Aug. 17, Cedillos-Campos left the workplace "armed with a fixed blade knife that he took from the restaurant," authorities said. He also had "a pair of latex gloves" and a water bottle, which he allegedly dumped and filled with gasoline from his motorcycle.
It was "all very premeditated," stated Davis.
A witness' account of events suggests a possible motive of the defendant, as well as his actions in the ensuing hours.
Cedillos-Campos was outraged that Puch "sent screenshots of their affair" to his girlfriend, according to a witness cited in a criminal complaint reviewed by Washington, D.C., NBC affiliate WRC. The defendant apparently declared that he was going to kill Puch.
At about 1:30 a.m. on Aug. 17, the witness reported hearing a phone conversation between Cedillos-Campos and Puch, the court document added. The two made a plan to meet.
They apparently met in the parking lot of Difficult Run Trail Park in Great Falls, Virginia, about 14 miles away from the Bitez restaurant. At some point, police said Cedillos-Campos stabbed Puch "repeatedly" and "doused her in gasoline and tried to set her on fire," though he was unsuccessful.
According to the witness, at roughly 4 a.m., Cedillos-Campos called the witness and said he did it and hung up, which the witness took to mean he had killed Puch.
At about 6:45 a.m., officers from the McLean District Station in Fairfax County responded to the park. A jogger had found the victim lying next to her car in the small gravel parking lot, per the local TV station.
Puch was pronounced dead. She was the mother of a 4-year-old girl, according to a fundraiser set up for her family that has since been deleted.
Cedillos-Campos was arrested. Police said he confessed to the crime.
The defendant is a citizen of El Salvador who entered the country illegally in 2024 and was arrested but then released, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said, adding that the agency asked that he be turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).