Man accused of opening fire on a family in Texas, killing five people, found ‘hiding under laundry in a closet’, after four-day manhunt – cops also arrest Francisco Oropesa’s wife and several other ‘aiders’
Texas cops arrest multiple people after apprehending ‘gunman who shot and killed five’ in Cleveland, Texas
Alleged shooter Francisco Oropesa, 38, was arrested in the city of Conroe, about a 30-minute drive from Cleveland where the shooting happened
Oropesa allegedly massacred five people last Friday after his neighbor confronted him over waking his baby with gunfire
Police found killer under a pile of dirty laundry at a house on Tuesday evening
Cops say they arrested at least one other person alongside serial illegal border crosser from Mexico
Oropesa’s wife Divimara Lamar Nava, 53, has been booked into Montgomery County Jail accused of hindering the apprehension of a felon
Others arrested were not identified
Oropeza will be charged with five counts of murder, bond was set at $5 million
Francisco Oropeza, the man accused of opening fire on his neighbors in Cleveland, a city north of Houston on April 28, killing five people, has now been arrested at a house in Conroe, Texas on Tuesday evening
The man accused of opening fire on a family in Texas, killing five people, has been arrested following a four-day manhunt.
Francisco Oropesa, 38, is accused of opening fire on his neighbors after they asked him to stop shooting in his yard because they were trying to get a baby to sleep.
The shooting happened on April 28, and sparked a national manhunt. On Tuesday, sources told NBC DFW that Oropesa was apprehended at a house in Conroe, Texas.
Officials said Oropesa was found hiding underneath a pile of laundry in the closet of a house.
Oropesa has been taken to the Montgomery County Jail, will be charged with five counts of first-degree murder, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said. Bond was set at $5 million.
Oropesa is been held at the Montgomery County Jail and is charged with first-degree murder
The fugitive, Francisco Oropeza, is accused of opening fire on his neighbors in Cleveland, a city north of Houston.
Authorities said they responded to a home in Cleveland, a city just north of Houston around 11.30pm and found two women dead at the front of the house, and a man lying dead in the living room.
The two women covered in blood, were found in a bedroom lying on top of two children, in an apparent attempt to shield them. The two young children survived.
All of the victims were shot from the ‘neck up’, execution style.
Officials said there were ten people in the house, including three children who were not hurt.
‘In my opinion, they were actually trying to take care of the babies and keep them babies alive,’ Sheriff Greg Capers said.
Multi-homicide suspect Francisco Oropeza, [photo], was apprehended in the city of Cut and Shoot, Texas, on Tuesday evening. Cops said he was hiding under a pile of laundry in a closet at the home
Hours after the arrest of Francisco Oropesa on Tuesday evening, Texas police announced the arrest of multiple people in connection with the case of the suspected gunman accused of shooting and killing five people.
Oropesa, 38, was arrested after he was was found hiding in a laundry basket in Cut and Shoot, Texas, Tuesday evening, 11 miles from the crime scene.
San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that they had arrested at least one other person in connection with the incident.
Oropesa’s wife Divimara Lamar Nava, 53, [photo] has been booked into Montgomery County Jail accused of hindering the apprehension of a felon, although it’s unclear if she is linked to the ongoing Oropesa case
Divimara Lamar Nava, 53, wife of suspect Francisco Oropeza, was arrested early Wednesday at a home in Conroe, Texas, in connection with the Friday night shooting in Cleveland, according to Montgomery County Sheriff Rand Henderson.
Nava was booked into the Montgomery County Jail. She is charged with felony hindering the apprehension of a felon, though it is unclear if she is linked to the incident.
Nava had previously denied knowledge of Oropeza’s whereabouts, Henderson said, but authorities believe she hid him in the home near Conroe where he was arrested Tuesday.
Oropesa, a Mexican national, had been deported from the US five times prior to the mass shooting which saw a nine-year-old boy killed ‘execution-style’.
Oropesa’s wife was interviewed multiple times and is in ‘constant contact’ with investigators, according to authorities.
He is accused of shooting and killing five last Friday after being asked to stop firing his gun by neighbors who said the gunshots were scaring their newborn.
Authorities confirmed that he had not been hiding in the house he was apprehended in for the duration of the manhunt. Sheriff Tim Kean said Oropesa ‘thought he was in a safe spot’, and confirmed a sighting of him on Highway 105 was the suspected murderer.
Authorities said Oropesa had a cell phone with him when he was found and that the people he had been contacting never left the area.
Sonia Guzman, 29, and her son Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, 9, who were both shot dead in the massacre
Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, [left], and Julissa Molina Rivera, 31, [right], were both shot dead by the gunman
Jose Jonathan Caserez, 18, [photo], also died during the incident which saw five people killed including a nine-year-old boy
Kean added: ‘Anybody that helped this maniac definitely has some kind of issues as far as I’m concerned.’
He is set to be charged with five counts of murder, with bond likely to be set at $5 million.
Wilson Garcia said he asked Oropesa to stop firing his gun because it kept his one-month-old baby awake, before the migrant killed Garcia’s wife Sonia Guzman, 29, and their son Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, 9.
Around 11.30 pm on Friday night, next door neighbor Wilson Garcia had gone over with a couple of other people and asked Oropesa to stops firing his gun at the late hour because his baby was trying to sleep. Garcia and his wife Sonia Guzman had a one-month-old infant. Garcia lived next door to Oropesa for three years without an altercation.
Shortly after the migrant stormed the home with an AR-15 rifle and killed Garcia’s wife Sonia, 29, and their nine-year-old son Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman.
Oropesa, who had been deported from the US five times, also shot dead Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21, Julissa Molina Rivera, 31, and Jose Jonathan Caserez, 18, during the incident. All victims were shot in the neck, execution style.
Garcia says one of the dying women urged him to jump out the window because his other two children needed a parent. He lived next door to Oropesa for three years without incident
Garcia says one of the dying women urged him to jump out the window because his other two children needed a parent.
His wife also called officers five times before the shooting, with Kean saying that there was an aggravated robbery at the time, which was deemed to ‘trump’ the information they had on Oropesa at the time.
The response time for officers was 14 minutes, with the illegal immigrant killing five of the ten residents of the home, before fleeing.
Garcia told CNN the woman who advised him to escape, ‘saw when my wife fell to the ground and was dying, and she told me to throw myself out the window because my children were already without their mother.
‘I have no words to describe what happened that night. I feel like I’m not alive, but at the same time I am.
‘What happened was horrible and ugly. I lived through it because I was there and managed to miraculously escape.
‘My nine-year-old son and my wife died, and two people who died protecting my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.
‘They protected my one-and-a-half-month-old son, covering him with a lot of clothes so that the murderer would not kill him too. Imagine how we feel right now.’
Garcia confirmed he and two others went to try to speak to Oropesa about the noise from the gun, but was told that it was his property so he could do what he wanted.
Texas Governor Greg Abbot offered $50,000 for his capture, and other counties’ have chipped in $5,000, with the FBI offering $25,000.
Garcia added: ‘We had company. We were going to make something to eat, the guy, came out and he was shooting.
‘ I said to my wife: ‘Get inside, because this man has already loaded his gun’. I told her ‘I don’t think he is coming here to just threaten us.’
According to Garcia, his wife contacted police five times before the shooting, but law enforcement did not arrive until after the shooting.
Garcia’s wife Sonia Guzman, seen, [photo with her son Daniel who was also killed by Oropeza, contacted police five times before the shooting, but did not arrive until after the massacre
‘Then my wife said, ‘You should go inside, because I don’t think he will shoot me. I am a woman.’
‘She said, ‘I’m going to stay here, I’m going to stay in the door.’ He just came and shot, that is, without saying anything. Bam. And my wife went down.
‘I don’t know what to tell you. He might have been intoxicated. Might have been drunk. But everything he did… he knew what he was doing.
‘Because a drunk person who can’t even stand up anymore, I don’t think would have grabbed a gun and loaded it and started shooting.
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said on Sunday ‘My heart is with this nine-year-old boy. I don’t care if he was here legally. I don’t care if he was here illegally. He was in my county’
‘He discovered that some of the people escaped and came back to finish them off and shot them in the head. When he didn’t get us, he came back and shoot everybody else in the head.
‘My heart is with this nine-year-old boy. I don’t care if he was here legally. I don’t care if he was here illegally. He was in my county’ – San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said on Sunday
Texas police forensic team were seen on Sunday working at the crime scene where the five people were shot and killed
‘I never thought that he would shoot. Then he went room to room, looking for people.
‘He couldn’t catch up to me. The bullets were hitting everywhere. I never had a problem with him. I can’t believe what he did.’
The FBI initially used the wrong photo in their wanted poster, but on Sunday corrected it, and also corrected the spelling of the shooters last name.
All those killed were Honduran nationals, with the Honduran Foreign Ministry preparing to repatriate their remains.
In a statement, they said: ‘The Government of Honduras deeply regrets the loss of these valuable lives and accompanies all their loved ones in their pain.
‘We demand that the pertinent authorities arrest the perpetrator of this terrible event and apply the full weight of the law.’
Enrique Reina, Honduras’ Secretary of Foreign Relations and International Cooperation, offered his condolences to the families of the San Jacinto County shooting victims.
Leave a Reply