Erin Benavides

Erin Marie Benavides was a Texas lawyer who spent most of her career prosecuting criminal cases in the San Antonio area, but she was known to the wider public for something that happened to her, not something she did on purpose: in 2010 she became the other name in one of the most talked about celebrity divorces of the decade, when Tony Parker's marriage to actress Eva Longoria ended amid reports of a text message relationship between Parker and Benavides, who was at the time married to Parker's San Antonio Spurs teammate Brent Barry.

Benavides was never a public figure by choice. She was the wife of an NBA player caught up in a scandal involving her husband's famous teammate. Parker admitted he texted Barry's wife, Erin, but said they did not have a physical affair. Benavides herself repeatedly said the relationship had not been physical, and both the Parker-Longoria marriage and the Barry marriage ended within weeks of each other in late 2010 and early 2011.

After the scandal faded from headlines, Benavides rebuilt a quieter life around the law. She served as an assistant district attorney in Comal and Bexar counties before joining the 38th Judicial District's anti-gang and border prosecution unit in January 2023. Colleagues who worked with her in those years said she was devoted to protecting children and survivors of trafficking, work that had nothing to do with the tabloid story that had once followed her name. She resigned from that prosecutor's post in August 2026, and according to reports she was unemployed and reportedly looking for a new position at the time of her death.

Benavides died on October 14, 2026, at her home in Port Aransas, Texas, at the age of 54. Officers were sent to her home for a welfare check after she sent a worrying text message to a friend of her husband, and they found her dead there; authorities have described her death as a suicide. News of her death resurfaced the sixteen year old scandal almost immediately, with many headlines framing her primarily through her connection to Parker and Longoria rather than through the career she built afterward. Former colleagues pushed back against that framing. District Attorney Christina Mitchell described Benavides as hardworking and generous, and recalled how she often encouraged colleagues and even defendants who seemed to be struggling.

Benavides had two sons with Brent Barry, and those who knew her spoke of how proud she was of them. Friends recalled her as a mother who adored her boys and who always shared their achievements with pride. As of this writing, no funeral or memorial service details have been made public, and her family has not issued a public statement beyond tributes shared by former colleagues.