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Texas massacre suspect is arrested after a tip to the FBI, ending dayslong manhunt, officials say
Wednesday, 03 May 2023 - 13:04 | Views - 847

A man accused of fatally shooting five people at a neighbor’s home in Texas last week, including a mother and her 9-year-old son, was arrested Tuesday evening after a dayslong manhunt, officials announced.

The suspect, Francisco Oropesa, was found in a house just miles from the home in Cleveland, Texas, where the killings took place, the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said.

Oropesa – who is a Mexican national – was “caught hiding in a closet underneath some laundry,” Sheriff Greg Capers told reporters during a Tuesday night press conference.

 

“They effectively made the arrest; he is uninjured; and he is currently being taken to my facility in Coldspring,” Capers added.

Though the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said Oropesa was captured in the town of Cut and Shoot, the FBI Houston office tweeted that he was found in the neighboring city of Conroe.

The suspect will be held on five counts of murder with bond set at $5 million, the sheriff said.

Oropesa, 38, is accused of carrying out the massacre Friday night after he was asked to stop shooting his rifle near a neighboring home, officials have said. Investigators had initially started tracking Oropesa using his cellphone but said that trail went cold Saturday evening.

A tip submitted through the FBI’s tip line ultimately led authorities to the suspect’s location, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul said. Paul said the tip came in at 5:15 p.m. local time and Oropesa was arrested at 6:30 p.m.

“We just want to thank the person who had the courage and bravery to call in the suspect’s location,” he said.

In addition to acting on the tip, law enforcement officials tracked Oropesa’s wife to a home near Cut and Shoot that was associated with one of his family members, a law enforcement source told CNN. It wasn’t immediately clear if that happened before or after the tip to the FBI.

Members of the Texas Department of Public Safety, US Marshals Service and US Customs and Border Patrol’s Border Patrol Tactical Unit, known as BORTAC, entered the home and brought the suspect into custody, an FBI Houston spokesperson said.

Authorities are now investigating whether the suspect had any help in hiding, San Jacinto County District Attorney Todd Dillon told CNN Tuesday night.

Oropesa will appear before a magistrate in San Jacinto County Wednesday, a law enforcement source involved in the investigation told CNN. Authorities have 90 days to indict the suspect, the source said.

The Mexican consulate will be formally notified on Wednesday of Oropesa’s circumstances, according to the source.

Authorities for days urged the public to come forward with any information and devoted substantial resources to tracking down the suspect, including more than 250 law enforcement officers and a $80,000 in rewards for tips leading to his arrest.

Though Oropesa’s current immigration status is unknown, he had entered the US illegally and been deported by immigration officials at least four times since 2009, said an ICE source who identified him as Francisco Oropesa Perez-Torres. An immigration judge first removed him in March 2009 before he was deported again in September 2009, January 2012, and July 2016, the source said.

It is not known how long Oropesa has been in the US since his last deportation, according to the source.

The victims – all Honduran nationals – have been identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25, and her son Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, 9; Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and José Jonathan Cásarez, 18.


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