Rafael Govea Romero, the suspect in Texas cheerleader Lizbeth Medina’s murder, appeared in court Feb 6, when a judge ruled he was competent to stand trial in August.
Jacqueline Medina drove 13 hours from Nevada to Texas to face her daughter’s alleged murderer in court for the first time Feb. 6.
Rafael Govea Romero, a 25-year-old illegal immigrant from Mexico, is accused of breaking into Jacqueline Medina’s former Edna apartment the morning of Dec. 5, 2023, and fatally stabbing her 16-year-old daughter, Lizbeth Medina, who was getting ready for school at the time. He allegedly left her body in a bathtub.
“This is the first time I saw him,” Medina told Fox News Digital after the hearing. “I wanted to sit right behind him. I wanted him to look at me. I wanted him to see me … and let him know that I’m here, regardless of all the pain that he’s making me feel and put my family through. We stand strong, and he’s not going to win.”
Medina recalled making eye contact with the suspect for the first time. She said he was taller than she expected.
“My daughter wasn’t that tall,” she said. “So, just thinking that my daughter had to fight him, what could she have done? Like, did she even have a chance against this man? He’s so tall and big, and it was just terrible.
“I did have eye contact with him, and he just looked down and looked away. I saw the shame in him like he understood the pain that he put us through. He showed me that just by looking down when I looked at him straight in his eye,” Medina recalled. “At one point, I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to sit there. I started shaking violently. I started hyperventilating. I couldn’t breathe. I cried. It’s just crazy how physical the emotions can get.”
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During Thursday’s hearing in Jackson County, a judge found Romero competent to stand trial and set a tentative trial date for August.
Medina said the decision felt like a weight lifted off her shoulders.
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“I got the information in November that there was going to be some type of insanity plea,” she said. “That … broke me. I was starting to lose hope in the system. And then I started doubting whether we were going to get justice.”
After Thursday’s hearing, however, she feels more confident that “things are going in the right direction.”
Jacqueline held a keychain featuring a photo of her daughter in her hand throughout the proceedings to give her “strength.”
“Having her there with me really helped,” she said.
Medina left her apartment for work early Dec. 5, 2023. Lizbeth, a high school cheerleader who had dreams of studying nursing at the University of Texas at Arlington, typically left for school shortly after her mom went to work, but that day she did not make it to school or the Christmas parade that her cheer team was supposed to be practicing for.
Jacqueline returned home that evening after no one had heard from or seen Lizbeth and found her dead in the bathtub of their apartment. Edna Police arrested Romero in Schulenburg, Texas, five days after Lizbeth’s death.
The murder suspect was reportedly on probation for a 2022 burglary in Schulenburg, about 60 miles from Edna, The Fayette County Record first reported. Edna Police said Romero may also be tied to a burglary at Lizbeth’s home about a month before her killing.
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Neither Medina nor Lizbeth knew Romero, but Medina noted that their house had been burglarized on Nov. 13, 2023, about a month before the teenager’s murder. Edna Police officers believe Romero may have been involved in the burglary and may have stalked Lizbeth before allegedly attacking and killing her.
Romero has pleaded not guilty in the capital murder case.
Romero’s defense team also filed a motion to suppress certain evidence late last year, arguing Edna Police Department officers searched and detained Romero without reasonable suspicion, and they searched his apartment without consent from the suspect, the Advocate reported.
The suspect’s defense attorney, Ross Reifel, did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Fox News Digital. Romero is being held on $2 million bond in Jackson County.
