A man was arrested Sunday on a capital murder warrant in the May slaying of a Bexar County sheriff’s deputy, authorities said.

Federal and local officials arrested Mark Anthony Gonzales at his family’s mobile home 15 miles south of San Antonio about 4 p.m. Sunday, after FBI agents swarmed the property, according to a sheriff’s office statement.

His wife, whose name was not released, also was taken into custody for questioning Sunday night, the statement said. Neither had been booked into the Bexar County Jail, Deputy Chief Dale Bennett said.

“Everyone is really relieved because everyone’s been really tense,” Sheriff Amadeo Ortiz said Sunday evening.

Gonzales’ arrest came two days after sheriff’s Sgt. Kenneth Vann was buried. He was ambushed in his patrol car while he was stopped at an east San Antonio intersection May 28.

Authorities say a truck matching the description of the suspect’s vehicle and registered to Gonzales was found at a San Antonio body shop. Investigators suspect an automatic weapon found at the Gonzales home was used in the slaying, according to the sheriff’s office.

If you have been charged with murder, sex crime, assault, etc., please contact The Law Office of Hector Gonzalez III at (512) 222-4140 for your free consultation.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

A 14 year old boy was arrested and charged with murder Tuesday in the weekend stabbing death of an 84 year old woman in the small Southeast Texas town of La Marque.

Vaneeda Wright’s body was discovered by relatives Sunday at her home. Authorities said they found no sign of forced entry. Parts of the house were ransacked.

Jennifer Dunn, chief of the Galveston County district attorney’s family division, said the teen was already detained as a runaway when the murder charge was filed. If convicted as a juvenile, the youth could be sentenced to a Texas Youth Commission facility until he turns 18. Dunn told the Houston Chronicle that the charge could be upgraded to an offense that would mean time in an adult prison. She also said the teen may be certified to stand trial as an adult.

If you have been charged with murder, sex crime, assault, etc., please contact The Law Office of Hector Gonzalez III at (512) 222-4140 for your free consultation.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

An Austin man charged in connection with the death of his 2 year old daughter said he hit her 10 times with a belt, Austin police said.
Nicholas Williams, 22, was charged Friday with injury to a child and was at the Travis County Jail with bail set at $40,000. Williams spanked his daughter, Alaney Queen, after she “pooped” in her pants, said Sgt. Hector Reveles of the Austin Police Department.
Williams’ girlfriend, Rebekah Gaddis, called Austin Travis County Emergency Medical Services at 2:41 p.m. Monday from the 800 block of West Slaughter Lane and said Alaney may have had a seizure and had stopped breathing, according to an arrest affidavit. Gaddis is not Alaney’s mother, Reveles said.
Emergency workers took the child to Dell Children’s Medical Center, where she died at 3:43 p.m. Monday, the affidavit said. The preliminary cause of death was blunt force injuries, according to the affidavit.
Gaddis later told police that she and Williams had returned from walking the dog Monday when Williams discovered that Alaney had “pooped” in her training pants, the affidavit said. Williams put the girl on the toilet and when he returned later, he said the girl was “eating her poop,” Gaddis told police, the affidavit said.
Gaddis said she later heard but did not see Williams hit the child four to six times, the affidavit said. Gaddis said she then went to the bathroom, where Williams was holding the girl out in front of him, according to the affidavit. Alaney’s lips were purple and she was gasping for breath, the affidavit said.
Gaddis said the child was put down for a nap, and Williams found the girl not breathing about an hour later, according to the affidavit. Gaddis said she did not notice any injuries on the child the day before when she gave her a bath, the affidavit said.
A preliminary autopsy showed that the girl had many recent injuries that did not all come from the same incident, Reveles said.
The child had numerous bruises on her face, back, buttocks, chest and arms and “extensive deep soft tissue injury and hemorrhage in the soft tissue and muscle across the entire buttock region,” the affidavit said.
The girl’s biological mother was out of state when the incident happened, Reveles said.
Five children were living in the apartment, but they were not all there when the girl was injured, Reveles said. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services has taken custody of the children, he said.

If you have been charged with murder, sex crime, assault, etc., please contact The Law Office of Hector Gonzalez III at (512) 222-4140 for your free consultation.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

A woman charged with killing her 6 year old son did not do it out of malice but “something snapped” and she needs help, the boy’s grandmother told mourners at his funeral Saturday.

As more than 100 people gathered at Calvary Baptist Church in Grand Prairie to remember Camden Pierce Hughes, a curly haired, blue eyed boy who loved reading and playing the guitar, his grandmother said the family’s world fell apart when he was found dead under his favorite blanket along a dirt road in Maine two weeks ago.

But LuRae McCrery cautioned against judging her now jailed daughter, Julianne McCrery, and said the family was suffering a “double loss.”

Julianne McCrery, 42, of the Dallas suburb of Irving, is being held without bail on second degree murder charges in New Hampshire. She is accused of killing her son in Hampton, N.H., on May 14 and dumping his body near the state line about 20 miles away in South Berwick, Maine. Preliminary autopsy findings show he died of asphyxiation.

Although Camden last attended kindergarten May 6, he had not been reported missing because his mother continued calling to say he was sick, school officials said. Camden wasn’t identified until four days after his body was discovered, when a family friend in Irving called authorities in Maine after seeing a computer generated photo distributed nationwide.

If you have been charged with murder, sex crime, assault, etc., please contact The Law Office of Hector Gonzalez III at (512) 222-4140 for your free consultation.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

A man was jailed on a capital murder charge after his girlfriend and her adult son were found shot dead in their south Houston home. Police said the bodies of 51 year old Sherry White and 20 year old Kyle Lavergne were found by relatives about 12:30 p.m. Saturday after they failed to answer calls.
Harris County district attorney’s spokeswoman Donna Hawkins said 51 year old Jeffery Keith Prevost was charged in the killings early Sunday. Houston police spokeswoman Jody Silva said jealousy is the suspected motive.

If you have been charged with murder, sex crime, assault, etc., please contact The Law Office of Hector Gonzalez III at (512) 222-4140 for your free consultation.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

A Waco teenager has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for trying to smother her infant son at a Fort Worth Hospital.

A Tarrant County jury deliberated more than three hours Friday before sentencing 18 year old Shantaniqua Nykole Scott. The same panel deliberated about 30 minutes Thursday before finding Scott guilty of injury to child/serious bodily injury. She was accused of trying to smother the 4 month old by pressing a blanket and then her hand over his face while he was hospitalized last summer. The child is now in foster care after emergency personnel rushed in and revived him.

Scott told a police detective that the stress of raising a baby was too much. She had faced a maximum sentence of life in prison but was also eligible for probation.

If you have been charged with murder, sex crime, assault, etc., please contact The Law Office of Hector Gonzalez III at (512) 222-4140 for your free consultation.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

On the day that Bianca Maldonado took advanced classes, dreamed of going to Europe and wanted to become a scientist, they also heard that her 2009 murder could have possibly been avoided.

A woman who knew Areli Carbajal Escobar, convicted last week of capital murder in Maldonado’s death and facing the death penalty, testified at his trials punishment phase Tuesday that Escobar once broke into her apartment after midnight and pressed his hands hard on her throat. Xenis Prudencio cried as she testified that she thought Escobar was going to rape or kill her that night. She said Escobar fled the apartment when her cousin awoke.

Prudencio said the attack was on March 25, 2009, about two months before Escobar killed Maldonado, 17, at her families far east Austin apartment on May 31, 2009.

Prudencio said she called police the morning of the attack. Two days later, Escobar’s sister, Lydia Escobar, who Prudencio had known, came to her apartment with an offer.

“They wanted to give me $1,000 not to do anything,” Prudencio said. “I told her no.”

Austin sex crimes Detective Stephen Andreini Said that he did not take a written statement from Prudencio when he went to her apartment the morning of her outcry, in part because Prudencio complained that her throat was sore from the attack and he wanted her to get medical attention.

Andreini said he later drove to Prudencio’s apartment when she did not return a call from police. She promised to call within a few days to make an appointment to come to his office to give a statement, he said. She never did call, something that Andreini said is common among victims of violent crimes or sexual assault.

“I wanted to forget about that,” Prudencio told jurors.

Prudencio’s testimony came a day after the jury heard from another woman who said she did not follow up with the police after being attacked by Escobar.

Catalina Cruz said she had known Escobar for about five years and was a friend of his wife when he came knocking on her door about 2:30 a.m. on Feb. 11, 2007.

When she answered the door, he pushed his way in while holding her throat with one hand and a screwdriver to her throat with the other, she said.

Cruz said Escobar let go and fled after her daughter woke up and began to call police.

Cruz said she reported the incident that day but did not follow up with detectives because she did not want to send Escobar to prison and leave her children without a father.

At the end of the punishment phase, the jury will decide whether Escobar receives life in prion or death. Some of those jurors shed tears in court when learning the details of Maldonado’s life and how her death has affected her family. Maldonado was born in Mexico and moved to the United States in 2005 with her two sisters to join their mother, Jacqueline Hernandez, who had moved years earlier to work, Hernandez testified.

Bryan Parker, an English teacher at LBJ High School who taught Maldonado in ninth and 10th grades, said Maldonado learned English quickly and eventually was in advanced placement classes in English as well as other subjects.

Parker, who said Maldonado maintained a B average, said she stood out from other students in many ways. He said she was mature and dressed “almost business like” and that she once wrote in an essay she dreamed of traveling to Europe to see the architecture.

Parker said Maldonado aspired to go to college in order to take care of her family and continued to work hard in school even after giving birth to a son during her sophomore year.

Hernandez, Maldonado’s mother, said Bianca was a second mother to her daughters. “They would obey her more than me, and I am their mom,” she said.

She said that when her daughter was in eight grade, they began her search for a college by visiting Texas A&M University. Maldonado believed not enough scientists in the United States to fill the jobs, so she focused on science. Hernandez said.

“She had a lot of ambition…………………to make a future for herself,” Hernandez said.

Hernandez said her daughter’s son lives with her now.

She said the boy, who is now 3 and has recovered from injuries suffered during the attack on his mother, from time to time walks over to a photo of his mother and kisses it.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

Shauna Kay Lopez and her best friend were counting out the days to a “girl’s weekend,” in Dallas to clear their minds.

They needed the break: The friends were both facing pending divorces.

“In our last conversation, she was so excited to get out and have a good time and not have to worry,” Lopez’s friend Ashley Bryant Lewellen, 25 said from her Longview home. “She was ready to get away and get her mind off everything.”

They would never reach their Dallas getaway.

Lopez, 27, and her parents Pat and Deena McLean, were shot and killed at their Georgetown home May 8. Shauna’s brother, Dustin, her nearly 1 year old son, Hayden, and a family friend escaped, relatives and authorities said.

Soon after, Lopez’s estranged husband fatally crashed his Ford Mustang as he led law enforcement authorities on a high speed chase on Interstate 35, officials said.

This past weekend, friends and relatives gathered to mourn the family in services in Georgetown as well as in Lampasas, where Pat McLean, 54, grew up.

An Aunt in Dallas is in the process of adopting Hayden.

“They were such loving, giving people,” said Dustin McLean, a 29 year old art student. “It’s so tragic this happened to them.”

In Waco, a much more private service was held for Jose Lopez, hosted by his parents. Lopez’s friends and relatives did not respond to requests for comment.

The night of the shooting, authorities say, 29 year old Jose Lopez confronted Pat McLean, a manager at a Round Rock high-tech firm, in the family’s driveway. “My dad went out to confront him, and nobody else even knew he was even out there,” Dustin McLean said. “I heard the shots, and I knew it was a gunshot immediately.”

When he looked outside, he saw his 54 year old father laying on the driveway.

“I saw the Mustang, and I knew,” he said. “I was very panicked. I just wanted to get everybody out. I wasn’t being heroic; I was just trying to protect my family.”

Before they could escape, Jose Lopez caught up to them, he said. Shauna and their mother, Deena, 52, were fatally shot, while Dustin and the family friend were able to escape with Hayden, he said.

Minutes later, law enforcement authorities say they spotted Lopez in his silver Mustang in Interstate 35. He raced away, reached speeds of 100 mph before fatally crashing into an unoccupied Round Rock police car, authorities said.

Lopez may have been trying to avoid tire deflation spikes when he crashed into the vehicle, which was parked nearby to block a freeway exit.

Lewellen first met Jose Lopez and Shauna McLean in 2005 through a mutual friend. It was the beginning of an instant friendship.

“She was bubbly and happy; she was one of those persons you could be friends with right when you meet them,” Lewellen replied. “She would always try to look at the positive side of things.”

They also bonded over their faith. Like Jose Lopez’s parents and Shauna’s mother, the friends were Jehovah’s Witnesses.

At the time, Lewellen could also see the connection between the couple, who married later that year. “They were head over heels in love with each other,” she said. “They doted over each other.”

Jose Lopez pursued a career in the automotive industry, either working on cars or in service departments at area dealerships. Shauna did clerical work for Georgetown commercial manufacturer McMillan Co.

On May 31, 2010, Hayden was born. By then, the love affair was unraveling.

Lopez stopped going to services at the couple’s Georgetown congregation and became verbally abusive with Shauna, Lewellen said. He lost his job.

“She finally just realized the best thing would be for him to leave,” Lewellen said.

Shauna moved back in with her parents; Jose Lopez moved into an apartment in Austin and began taking classes at Austin Community College this year.

The couple fought over time spent with Hayden and child support, and Shauna Lopez was looking at divorce as a way of forcing the payments, Lewellen said.

“He still visited Hayden on the weekends,” she said. But “he would call her names, just berate her, and he wasn’t supporting her. He wasn’t being Christian.” But at home, Shauna found the family support she needed, Lewellen said. She spent time with her mother, who ran a craft business.

The family was tight-knit. Each year Pat and Deena McLean headed to the Hawaiian Islands, often with Shauna and Dustin in tow.

Last year, Pat McLean, described as a quiet, dedicated family man, surprised the whole family by getting matching tattoos with his son.

The McLean’s often visited a special spot on the island of Kauai, Dustin McLean said.

“My mom thought it was the most wonderful place in the whole world; they even brought me to that spot,” he said. “I’m going to spread some of their ashes there, on a little spot by the ocean.”

El pasado fin de semana, amigos y familiares se reunieron para llorar la familia en servicios en Georgetown, así como en Lampasas, Pat McLean, 54, donde se crió.
Una tía de Dallas está en el proceso de adopción de Hayden.
“Estaban tal cariñosos, dando a la gente,” dijo Dustin McLean, un estudiante de arte de 29 años de edad. “Es tan trágica que esto sucedió a ellos”.
En Waco, se celebró un servicio mucho más privado de José López, conducido por sus padres. De López amigos y familiares no respondió a solicitudes de comentarios.
La noche del tiroteo, las autoridades, de 29 años, José López frente a Pat McLean,
un administrador en una empresa de alta tecnología de Round Rock, en el camino
de la familia. “Mi papá salió hacer frente a él y nadie más incluso sabía que él era incluso por ahí,” dijo Dustin McLean. “Escuché los disparos, y sabía que era un arma de fuego inmediatamente”.
Cuando miró fuera, vio a su padre de 54 año de edad de la entrada.”Vi el
Mustang, y sabía,” dijo. Yo era muy pánico. Sólo quería salir todo el mundo. Yo no estaba siendo heroica; Sólo intentaba proteger a mi familia.”
Antes de que pudieran escapar, Jose Lopez atrapados, dijo. Shauna y su madre, Deena, 52, fatalmente fueron fusilados, mientras que Dustin y el amigo de la familia pudieron escapar
con Hayden, dijo.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701

The body of a man was found floating Friday afternoon in an area of Lake Belton that has been the focal point of a search for a 53-year-old man who has missing since Jan. 31, officials said.

The body has not been identified, said Temple police spokesman Sgt. Brad Hunt. Officials have been searching for Clifford Anthony Manuel, whose vehicle was found at McGregor Park on Feb. 2, Hunt said. He was reported missing Feb. 1 and has not been heard from since Jan. 31, Hunt said.

The body, which was found between McGregor Park and the Texas 36 bridge, was taken to Southwest Institute of Forensic Science in Dallas for an autopsy, Hunt said.

The case remains an active investigation, and anyone with information is asked to contact Temple police at 254-298-5500.El cuerpo de un hombre fue encontrado flotando el viernes por la tarde en un área de Lago Belton que ha sido el punto focal de la búsqueda de un hombre de 53 años de edad que le falta desde el 31 de enero, dijeron funcionarios.
El cuerpo no ha sido identificado, dijo el portavoz de la policía de templo Sargento Brad Hunt. Funcionarios han estado buscando Clifford Anthony Manuel, cuyo vehículo fue encontrado en Parque de McGregor el 2 de febrero, dijo Hunt. Se reportaron desaparecidos el 1 de febrero y no ha sido escuchada desde desde el 31 de enero, dijo Hunt.
El cuerpo, que fue encontrado entre McGregor Park y el puente de Texas 36, fue llevado a Southwest Instituto de ciencias forenses en Dallas para una autopsia, dijo Hunt.
El caso sigue una investigación activa, y alguien con información debe ponerse en contacto con la policía de templo en 254-298-5500.

Law Offices of Hector Gonzalez III - 512-501-2344
700 Lavaca St Suite 1400, Austin Texas 78701