Sheriff Announces 'Coward' Illegal Immigrant Suspected of 5 Murders Has Been Arrested in a Strange Location
A four-day manhunt ended Tuesday in the city of Cut and Shoot, Texas, with the arrest of a man accused of fatally shooting five people in Cleveland, Texas.
Francisco Oropesa stands accused of killing five of his neighbors with what NBC News described as an “AR-15 rifle” Friday night. One of the dead was a 9-year-old boy, according to the report.
In announcing the arrest of 38-year-old Oropesa, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers called the suspected shooter a “coward.”
A call to an FBI tip line Tuesday evening led to the arrest barely an hour later, Jimmy Paul, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Houston field office, told reporters.
He was concealed in a strange spot.
“He was caught hiding in a closet underneath some laundry,” Capers said. He was arrested without injury and was on the way to Capers’ jail in Coldspring, Texas, the sheriff said.
You can watch the entire news conference here:
“We just want to thank the person who had the courage and bravery to call in the suspect’s location,” Paul said.
Officials did not release additional information about the home where Oropesa was found, or who called in the tip to the FBI.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had deported Oropeza, a Mexican national, several times, the last time being in 2016, according to Breitbart.
Friday’s incident began late at night when Wilson Garcia asked Oropesa to stop firing a rifle in his yard because an infant in Garcia’s house was trying to sleep, according to The New York Times.
“The suspect said something along the lines of, ‘It’s his property, he’ll do whatever he pleased on his property,'” Capers said, according to Fox News. “The man went back into the house. Next thing they know, he’s walking up the driveway with rifle in hand.”
Garcia’s wife was the first to die as she stood near the entrance of the house, according to the Times. Garcia said he fled from the shooter after his wife was killed.
“I thought he was going to follow me. But after he couldn’t catch me, he went back to the house to finish them off,” he said.
“I came back for my two children. They were hiding in the closet. The two women protecting them when they died — they were hugging them,” he said.
Carlos Ramirez, Garcia’s brother, said the women who died were protecting a 6-week-old boy and a 3-year-old girl, both of whom survived.
Capers said the killings were methodical.
“Everybody that was shot was shot from the neck up, almost execution-style,” he said.
NBC News listed the dead as Garcia’s wife, Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Daniel Enrique Laso, 9; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; and Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18. All were believed to have been from Honduras.
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