HOUSTON –
Centerville residents had become more vigilant over the past three weeks as authorities searched for a killer who had been killed in the name of Mexican drug cartels and who last month stabbed and injured a bus driver. the prison when he escaped from custody not far from his little one. City of Texas.
The search for Gonzalo López, 46, ended Thursday night in a shooting about 220 miles (350 kilometers) away. He drove officers on a brief chase in a stolen truck before being shot down.
Authorities believe that while Lopez was roaming free, he killed a man and his four grandchildren, then stole an AR-15-style rifle and a pistol from his ranch near Centerville, as well as the truck he drove to County Atascosa, south of San Antonio. where he was shot dead by officers.
“This is something you can never imagine happening in a small community like this,” said Tuffy Loftin, 61, a Centerville pastor who knew the family.
Centerville residents have been worried since May 12, when Lopez defeated the officer driving him and 15 prisoners closer to his community between Dallas and Houston. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is still investigating how Lopez was released from his restraints and escaped from a caged area of the bus where he had been detained.
Following his escape, law enforcement vigorously patrolled Highway 7 and other Centerville highways, escorting many of the city’s nearly 1,000 residents to their homes to make sure they felt safe.
Jean Davis, 70, who owns a feed and fertilizer shop in the east of the city, said her husband wanted her to carry a rifle and a gun to work, but she refused.
“The city has been really on the edge, especially the first 10 days when it was out and no one knew where it was,” said Davis, who lives about 15 miles (24 miles) away in Buffalo.
State agents, Texas Criminal Justice Department officials, the U.S. Marshals Service, and deputies from the Leon County Sheriff, which includes Centerville, searched the area for Lopez for weeks without luck.
Concerns about his whereabouts were justified: Lopez’s long criminal history included convictions for capital murder, attempted murder with the death penalty, kidnapping and aggravated assault. Authorities said he belonged to the Mexican mafia, which is a prison gang, and was a contract killer of at least two drug cartels.
In a confession to authorities, López said he was on his way to Laredo to kill the owner of a restaurant and bar for the Mileno drug cartel in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, in 2004, when he was involved in a shootout with deputies who tried to stop him. vehicle.
Lopez escaped to Mexico with the help of the Mexican mafia.
In March 2005, Lopez said he was hired by the La Mana drug cartel in Tamaulipas, Mexico, to kidnap a man named Lupe Ramirez of Weslaco in South Texas because he owed $ 40,000 to the cartel, according to court records.
Lopez and another person kidnapped Ramirez and left him “tied up in a room outside my mother’s residence” while they were going to collect the money and marijuana that Ramirez’s family had left them, according to court records. Later, López hit Ramírez’s head with a picket and buried his body in a desert.
Lopez had been sentenced to life in prison for capital murder by Ramirez’s death and to life in prison for attempted capital murder in a 2004 shooting with deputies when he escaped from the prison bus.
Authorities maintained about 40 itinerant patrols, believing he remained in the area around Centerville, possibly entering unoccupied structures to search for food, water and clothing, said Jason Clark, a spokesman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
At around 6pm on Thursday, authorities went to a house near Centerville for a welfare check and found five bodies. In a statement, his family identified the deceased as Mark Collins, 66, and his four grandchildren: Waylon Collins, 18; Carson Collins, 16; Hudson Collins, 11; and 11-year-old Bryson Collins. Waylon, Carson and Hudson were brothers and Bryson was his cousin.
“These beautiful people who were loved and loved by so many will never be forgotten,” the Collins family said in a statement. Steve Bezner, the family’s pastor, described the Houston area family as “the greatest character, the deepest faith, and the relentless kindness and love.”
At a news conference Friday afternoon, Andy Kahan, Houston’s director of victim services and Crime Stoppers, called the family’s murder “absolutely one of the most heartbreaking scenarios I’ve ever dealt with.” seen many things “. and he’s been through a lot. “
The Tomball School District in the suburbs of Houston said Friday that the grandchildren were students in his district.
Loftin, pastor of Cowboy Church in Leon County, said he used to go to the family ranch, which also has a “beautiful fishing lake and pier,” to help with livestock management. He called them “good, salt people of the earth.”
Authorities believe Lopez confronted the family on Thursday. The Leon County Sheriff’s Office has not specified how they were killed.
Authorities say Lopez grabbed several firearms from the house as well as the family’s white Chevy truck and fled. He was spotted by law enforcement shortly before 10 p.m. in Atascosa County.
Jourdanton police officers used spikes to flatten the truck’s tires, but Lopez continued to drive, firing a rifle through a truck window before hitting two telephone poles and a fence, the sheriff said. of Atascosa County, David Soward.
Lopez “got out of the stolen van armed with a rifle and a pistol and fired at officers,” Soward said. Four officers returned fire and killed Lopez.
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Sainz reported from Memphis, Tennessee. Associated Press writer Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.