Global Courant 2023-05-01 10:46:27
San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
“He opened fire entering the house and killed my wife and my eight-year-old child, I was left with one of a month and a half and a three-year-old,” was the heartbreaking story of Wilson Lazo, husband of Sonia Argentina Guzmán Taibot and father of little Daniel Enrique Lazo Guzmán (8 years old), two of the five Hondurans shot to death in San Jacinto County, Texas.
The heartbroken man told Hispanic media in Texas that “my friend died protecting my girl because she hugged her, he shot her in the side, but then he came back and shot her in the head.”
The crime against the five Hondurans that has shocked the Honduran and Hispanic community occurred Friday night at a home in San Jacinto County, Texas, about 90 kilometers from Houston.
The victims were identified as Diana Velásquez Alvarado (21 years old), Obdulia Molina Rivera (31) who also called herself Julissa; Josué Jonathan Cáceres (18), Sonia Argentina Guzmán Taibot (28) and her son Daniel Enrique Lazo Guzmán (9). Armed and dangerous. The county sheriff, Greg Capers, reported that the perpetrator of the shooting is a Mexican national and was identified as Francisco Oropeza. He is charged with five counts of murder.
The suspect was known in the neighborhood because he liked to shoot in his backyard with an AR-15 rifle, Capers said. As Capers explained, the suspect broke into the house of his neighbors after they asked him to stop shooting in the garden with his rifle because it was very late and a baby was trying to sleep.
According to Capers, when the agents arrived at the house, they found the adults already dead, while the minor was taken by helicopter to a hospital, where he died.
The Police saw how two of the deceased women were in the bedroom of the house and their bodies were on top of two of the children who survived, in an apparent attempt to protect them from the bullets.
Three other children were taken to the hospital, covered in blood, but were not injured. The ten people inside the house lived together, although they were not part of the same family.
Reward
More than 200 agents went door to door yesterday in search of clues that would allow them to arrest Francisco Oropeza. Federal agencies such as the FBI are also involved in the investigation and have been providing assistance since Saturday.
To encourage neighbors to pitch in, authorities are offering an $80,000 reward for anyone who can provide information leading to the arrest of the shooter.
“We have your card from the Mexican consulate,” the county sheriff said. On Saturday, authorities believed they had the suspect cornered in a wooded area near the scene of the shooting; but, they lost their trail and, yesterday Sunday, after expanding the search perimeter, they acknowledged that they do not even know if the suspect is still in the area.
He fbi he believes Oropeza may have contacted his friends to ask for their help in escaping, and now agents are trying to identify those friends for questioning. The security forces have already questioned the defendant’s wife “two or three times” and are in contact with her.
The Honduran Foreign Minister, Eduardo Enrique Reina, demanded that the author of the death of the five Hondurans be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
“We demand that the full weight of the law be applied against him or those responsible for this crime,” Reina said on Twitter. The Honduran Consulate in Houston has carried out actions to provide support to the relatives of the murdered compatriots and for the repatriation of the corpses that will be covered by the program for crime victims offered by the United States.
Pain
Francia Cristina Guzmán, Silvia’s mother, found out by phone that her daughter and grandson were dead. She said that her daughter built her house for her in Honduras, but she “would give all that to have them.”
