A 23-year-old Anaheim woman is accused of killing and decapitating her boyfriend of just two months, then slipping across the border to Mexico before investigators could catch up. Prosecutors say the case, which involves a 55-year-old man found headless in his Southern California home, has quickly turned into an international manhunt story with a stark ending at the border. The allegations are brutal, the timeline is tight, and the questions about how a short relationship spiraled into a homicide case are only starting to surface.
Authorities in Orange County now say the woman is back in the United States, held without bail as she faces a murder charge that has stunned even veteran detectives. With details still emerging and no public explanation of motive, the case is a grim snapshot of intimate partner violence colliding with flight across national lines and a fast-moving response from local police, federal agents, and Mexican authorities.
The brief relationship that ended in a killing
Investigators say 23-year-old Alyssa Marie Lira and 55-year-old Enrique Gonzalez-Carbajal had been dating for only about two months before his death, a short-lived relationship that now sits at the center of a homicide file. According to reporting on the case, the pair were living in Anaheim when Gonzalez-Carbajal was found dead, and officials later described him as a 55-year-old boyfriend whose relationship with Lira had barely cleared the getting-to-know-you stage. The age gap, the short timeline, and the domestic setting all feed into a familiar but still deeply unsettling pattern, where a private relationship becomes the backdrop for extreme violence.
Authorities have not publicly outlined what they believe happened inside the home in the hours before Gonzalez-Carbajal was killed, and they have not released any detailed narrative of the couple’s final days together. What they have said, through court filings and public statements, is that the victim’s body was discovered without his head, and that the manner of death is being treated as a deliberate decapitation tied directly to the murder charge. Early coverage of the case notes that homicide detectives in Anaheim quickly zeroed in on a 23-year-old woman as their primary suspect, describing her as the intimate partner of the man whose body they found.
Inside the Anaheim crime scene and early investigation
The discovery of Gonzalez-Carbajal’s body in Anaheim set off a homicide investigation that moved quickly from processing a gruesome crime scene to tracking a suspect who was already gone. Detectives described the killing as a beheading, and the condition of the body immediately signaled to investigators that they were dealing with an especially violent act rather than an ambiguous death. According to one account, homicide detectives in Anaheim worked the scene and surrounding area, then began piecing together the victim’s recent contacts and movements to identify who had been with him in the days before he was found.
As they followed that trail, investigators say they identified Alyssa Marie Lira as the person they believed was responsible for the killing. One report notes that a 23-year-old woman was quickly identified as the suspect after detectives reviewed evidence tied to the home and the couple’s relationship. From there, the case shifted from a local crime scene to a cross-border pursuit, as officers realized the person they wanted to question was no longer in Orange County.
The flight to Mexico and cross-border pursuit
Once Anaheim detectives concluded that Lira was their suspect, they also determined that she had already left the country. Investigators say she fled to Mexico almost immediately after the killing, turning what might have been a straightforward arrest into a fugitive case that required coordination with federal partners. One detailed account explains that, during the course of the investigation, Anaheim homicide detectives identified Lira as the suspect and determined she had immediately crossed into Mexico, prompting them to reach out to federal authorities and Mexican counterparts.
Federal officials later highlighted the case as part of a broader pattern of fugitives trying to use the border as a shield. In a social media update, the FBI described a 23-year-old Anaheim woman who fled to Mexico after a murder in Orange County and was later returned to the United Sta, underscoring that the agency was involved in tracking her down. Another post framed it as the second time in a week that the FBI had confirmed the return of a fugitive wanted for murder in Orange County to the United Sta, signaling that cross-border cooperation on homicide cases has become a regular, if grim, part of the job.
Arrest in Mexico and return to Orange County
Authorities say the break in the case came when Mexican officers located Lira and took her into custody, setting the stage for her return to California. One report notes that a Mexican Police Officer was involved in the arrest of the 23-year-old woman accused of beheading her boyfriend, after which she was brought back to the border and handed over to U.S. officials at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. That handoff, described in coverage of the case, marked the moment the fugitive phase ended and the court process in Orange County began.
From there, the case moved quickly into the local justice system. According to prosecutors, Alyssa Marie Lira, 23, was arrested in Mexico for the alleged murder and decapitation of her 55-year-old boyfriend, Enr, and then extradited to face charges in Orange County. Officials say she is now being held in the Orange County Jail without bail, a detail echoed in multiple accounts that describe her as a high-risk defendant with no current possibility of release while the case is pending.
Charges, unanswered motive, and what comes next
Prosecutors in Orange County have charged Lira with murder tied to the killing and decapitation of Gonzalez-Carbajal, and they have made clear they view the case as a particularly brutal example of intimate partner violence. One summary of the charges notes that a California woman was arrested after allegedly decapitating her boyfriend and fleeing to Mexico, identifying her as Alyssa Marie Lira of An and tying the case directly to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. Another breakdown of the case, labeled as The Brief, describes how Alyssa Marie Lira, 23, was arrested in Mexico for the alleged murder and decapitation of her 55-year-old boyfriend, Enr, reinforcing the prosecution’s framing of the crime.
What remains missing, at least publicly, is any clear explanation of why the killing happened. One detailed report notes that no findings about motive have been made public, a point highlighted in a section labeled What, which underscores that investigators and prosecutors are keeping their theories close for now. Another social media clip from To the Orange County District Attorney’s Office describes twenty-3-year-old Alisa Lira of as working as a stripper at the time of the alleged crime, but even that detail arrives without any official link to a motive or explanation for the violence.
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