A Texas man has been charged with manslaughter after he confessed to choking his girlfriend to death while they were having sex, according to law enforcement.

According to ABC 13, on Tuesday (March 21), Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded to a medical emergency report around 2:20 a.m in the 800 block of Ashland Boulevard in Channelview, Texas. When the officers arrived, they found DeJe Garett-Hillard, 27, lying unresponsive. She was rushed to a local hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

When deputies interviewed the victim’s boyfriend, Jaaron Thomas, 27, he stated that they were engaged in “erotic asphyxiation” when she became unresponsive. Erotic asphyxiation is a sex act that involves intentionally restricting air supply to the brain through choking to increase sexual arousal. This act can lead to accidental death due to asphyxia. A criminal complaint obtained by The New York Post read that Thomas “unlawfully” and “recklessly” caused his girlfriend’s death by “applying pressure to the neck and throat of DeJe Garett-Hillard with his hands and impeding her breath.”

On Thursday (March 23), Thomas posted a $40,000 bond he was ordered. Before his release, prosecutors asked a judge to impose several bond conditions on Thomas, barring him from making contact with the victim’s family, possessing firearms, or consuming drugs or alcohol. He is set to be due back in court on May 17, according to The New York Post. The media outlet also reported that Thomas was arrested in November of 2021 on a charge of soliciting prostitution but it ended up being dismissed.

According to a study made in 2021 from Arizona State Law Journal, the FBI estimated that between 500 and 1,000 people die each year in the United States from autoerotic asphyxiation. The federal circuit courts have questioned whether these deaths are accidents for purposes of accidental death insurance.