CAMERON COUNTY, Texas (ValleyCentral) — A Harlingen man already awaiting a trial for a 2020 murder pleaded not guilty to a separate murder of a Corpus Christi woman in 2019.
Anthony Eliff III on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder, a first degree felony, according to Cameron County records.
According to previous ValleyCentral reports, Eliff is accused of murdering Elyn Loera, 32, in September 2019.
Loera was reported missing that month after traveling from Harlingen to Corpus Christi to see Eliff, who she was dating at the time, a probable cause affadavit stated. The document details how the two stayed at Hudson House Motel in Harlingen, where Eliff told authorities they got into an argument when he saw videos of her having sex with another man.
Eliff told police that she then walked away and never saw her again, the document said.
According to the affidavit, Loera remained missing until an anonymous woman told Harlingen police in February 2020 that Eliff told her he killed Loera and buried her body in San Benito. Investigators searched a field in San Benito near Eliff’s relatives and found human remains, a blanket and a projectile.
The remains were sent to a lab to collect DNA samples, and in February 2022, the samples were identified as Loera’s. The blanket recovered at the gravesite was also said to be similar to the blankets in the Hudson House Motel.
At the time, Eliff was already jailed at the Carrizales-Rucker Detention Center for a separate murder case. Eliff was indicted March 2020 for the death of Guillermo Garcia. On Feb. 6, 2020, Harlingen police found Garcia dead in a vehicle with a gunshot wound to his chest.
