CLEVELAND, Texas (AP) – Four days hunting in texas for a gunman accused of murdering five neighbors ended Tuesday when authorities, acting on a tip, said they found the suspect hiding under a pile of clothes in a home’s closet.
What you need to know
Authorities near Houston say they have captured a man suspected of killing five of his neighbors with an AR-style rifle.
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said Tuesday that Francisco Oropesa, 38, was arrested in connection with the shooting in the city of Cleveland.
He said Orpesa was found hiding in a closet in a home, under a pile of clothes, after investigators acted on a tip.
Authorities say the shooting began Friday afternoon after neighbors confronted Oropesa about firing a gun in their yard late at night. One of the victims was 9 years old
Francisco Oropesa, 38, was captured without incident near the community of Conroe, north of Houston and about 20 miles (32 kilometers) from his home in the rural city of Cleveland. That’s where authorities say he went next door and shot his neighbors with an AR-style rifle shortly before midnight Friday.
Orpesa had been shooting on his property and the attack came after neighbors asked him to leave because the gunshots were keeping an infant awake, police said.
Oropesa will be charged with five counts of murder, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said. Bail was set at $5 million.
“They can rest easy now, because he’s behind bars,” Capers said of the victims’ families. “He will live his life behind bars for killing these five.”
The arrest ends what had become a widening dragnet which had grown to over 250 people from various jurisdictions and had seen $80,000 in reward money. As recently as Tuesday morning, the FBI said Orpesa “could be anywhere,” underscoring how investigators struggled for days to get a sense of his whereabouts and frankly admitted they had no leads.
The tip that finally ended the pursuit came in at 5:15 p.m., and a little more than an hour later, Oropesa was in custody, said FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul. The suspected shooter is a Mexican national who has been deported four times between 2009 and 2016, according to US immigration officials.
Connor Hagan, an FBI spokesman, said they would not release the identity of the person who called the tip, one of more than 200 he says investigators received. Authorities did not say who owned the home, whether Orpesa knew them or if anyone else was inside when they found him.
They also did not say whether friends or family had helped Orpesa evade capture, or where he had been since fleeing the scene in Cleveland, which authorities previously said was likely on foot.
A state police vehicle passes a wanted poster posted for a suspect in a mass shooting Tuesday, May 2, 2023, in the neighborhood where Friday’s shooting occurred, in Cleveland, Texas. The manhunt for the suspected gunman who allegedly shot five of his neighbors, including a child, after they asked him to stop firing ammunition into his yard extended into a fourth day Tuesday. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Hagan said the three agencies that went in to arrest Orpesa were the U.S. Marshals, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Border Patrol’s BORTAC team.
Drones and scent tracking dogs had been used during the manhunt, which included combing a densely wooded forest a few miles from the scene. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott offered a $50,000 reward as the search stretched into the weekend, while others offered an additional $30,000 in reward money.
Capers said that before Friday’s shooting, officers had been called to the suspect’s home at least one other time before for shots fired in his yard.
All the victims were from Honduras. Wilson Garcia, who survived the shooting, said friends and family at the home tried to hide and protect themselves and the children after Oropesa went into the house and began shooting, killing his wife first in the main door
The victims were identified as Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 9.
A government official in Honduras said the remains of four of the victims would be repatriated. Velasquez Alvarado will be buried in the United States at the request of her sister and her husband, said Wilson Paz, director general of Honduras’ migrant protection service.
Osmán Velásquez, Diana’s father, said Tuesday that his daughter had recently obtained residency and had traveled to the United States without documents eight years ago with the help of a sister, who already lived there.
“Her sister convinced me to let her take my daughter. She told me America is a land of opportunity and that’s true,” he said. “But I never imagined it was just for that.”
In offering the reward, Abbott called the victims “illegal immigrants,” a partially false statement that his office withdrew and apologized for Monday after sparking a backlash to draw attention to the their immigration status. Abbott spokeswoman Renae Eze said they have since learned that one of the victims may have been in the country legally.
