A Texas man who brutally decapitated his wife has been found dead in his prison cell on Friday. Jared James Dicus, 24, murdered his wife, 21-year-old Anggy Diaz, just four months after their impromptu wedding. He pleaded guilty in an open-and-shut trial in 2024.
Dicus was sentenced to as many as four decades in prison, according to the New York Post. His earliest parole date was set for 2043.
How did Jared James Dicus die?
Dicus was found hanging in his single-person cell at the Wainwright Unit in Houston County on Friday, a state death report obtained by KLTV stated. Prison staff found him and tried life-saving efforts, but responding EMS staff pronounced him dead just before 11 pm, per the report.
Dicus and Diaz tied the knot in October 2022. Their closest friends reportedly disapproved of their rocky relationship.
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Diaz’s mutilated body was found in the couple’s Houston-area home on January 11, 2023. Her severed head had been ditched in the shower with a knife.
Dicus’ father called police after discovering the body. He lived in a larger home on the same property as the couple’s cottage.
After the murder and before his arrest, Dicus cruised over to the Chepes meat market where Diaz worked. He stole a can of beer and drank it in the parking lot, shocking surveillance footage showed.
In 2023, a close friend of Diaz’s told the New York Post that Dicus seemed insecure about his marriage. “He posted a video saying, ‘She is mine,’ to social media, and it was weird because no one was questioning that…it was out of no where,” said the friend.
The pal added that she last saw Diaz at a Christmas party less than a month before her murder. Dicus, who was also at the event, stormed out “looking really upset” while everyone else “was having a good time,” she said.
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The friend said she believed Diaz was a victim of domestic violence, even though “she never said there were any problems” and speculated “she was just embarrassed to admit her relationship wasn’t perfect.”
Days after Diaz was killed, Waller County Sheriff Troy Guidry revealed that the department knew about the couple. He added that “disturbance” calls were previously made, but nothing that matched the “level of violence” seen in Diaz’s killing.