A man accused of killing five neighbors with an AR-15 rifle at his Texas home was arrested Tuesday.
The arrest of Francisco Oropesa, 38, in the city of Cut and Shoot, Texas, ended Tuesday the fourth day of a major manhunt.
A call to the FBI line at 5:15 p.m. led to Oropesa’s arrest at 6:30 p.m., Jimmy Paul, assistant special agent for the FBI’s Houston field office, said at a press conference. rice field.
“I would like to thank anyone who had the courage and courage to call the suspect’s whereabouts,” Paul said.
Oropesa was accused of murdering five people, including a 9-year-old boy, Friday night in Cleveland, Texas, after he asked him to stop firing his rifle as the infant was trying to sleep, police said. officials said.
Oropesa has been charged with five counts of murder and is being held on $5 million bail, said San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers.
Caper called Oropesa a coward.
“He was found hiding in a closet under the laundry,” he said Tuesday.
No details have been released about the house where Oropesa was found. Officials said the incident was still under investigation.
Footage that appears to capture moments during and after a suspect’s arrest A man was handcuffed and taken out of his residence, and later shown sitting in the passenger seat of a car.
The arrest ended a massive manhunt involving more than 250 law enforcement officers, the FBI, and an $80,000 bounty for information.
Oropesa was arrested four days after he went and opened fire at a neighbor’s house in Cleveland’s Trails End neighborhood, about 45 miles north of Houston, the sheriff’s office said.
Oropesa opened fire after she complained that shooting from an adjacent property was disturbing her infant’s sleep, officials said.
Wilson Garcia’s wife asked him to go to Oropesa’s mansion and ask if he wanted to stop shooting or shoot elsewhere. Garcia said the request wasn’t unreasonable because they had a good relationship with Oropesa.
“So we told the man to either stop filming or continue filming away from home. But he replied that he was on his property and could do whatever he wanted,” Garcia said. said.
“I said: ‘OK, that’s fine. It’s your property, but could you move it further away or turn the volume down?'” Garcia said.
The victims, all believed to be from Honduras, have been identified as follows: Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25 years old. Diana Velázquez Alvarado, 21 years old. Julisa Molina Rivera, 31 years old. Jose Jonathan Casares, 18 years old.
Garcia identified Daniel as his son and Guzmán as his wife and child’s mother.
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Authorities said four adult victims were pronounced dead at the scene and Danielle died in hospital. Capers said it could have been saved. He said he believed 15 bullets were fired.
Cut and Shoot, where Oropesa was arrested on Tuesday, is a community of about 1,000 people just east of Conroe and about 16 miles west of the Cleveland neighborhood where the killing took place.
Investigators said on Sunday they were facing a dead end with “zero clues.”
The FBI said on Tuesday that law enforcement officers were analyzing “hundreds of information from all over the place,” and Houston-area digital billboards displayed Oropesa and bounties. There were plans to expand the sign statewide.
It is not immediately clear how Oropesa managed to escape the police for days.
A search party found his cell phone and some of his clothing on Saturday, but the scent-tracking dogs eventually lost track of him.
Capers also said authorities had seized the rifle used in the attack, but Oropesa may have still been armed with a handgun.
At a press conference on Sunday, Gov. Greg Abbott said the shooter had been deported from the United States four times and illegally returned to Texas.
San Jacinto County District Attorney Todd Dillon said Oropesa’s wife filed a protective order last year, alleging Oropesa beat her. She said he was drunk, hit her with her fist, kicked her on the floor and threatened her, Dillon said.
His wife told authorities last year that Oropesa was staying with the Conroe sisters. There was no information that it had anything to do with Tuesday’s arrest.
Many agencies, including the FBI’s Houston field office, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Gulf Violent Criminals Task Force, the Texas Department of Public Safety, and the Texas Rangers, assisted in the search for Oropesa.
Marshall Services, the Department of Public Security, and the US Border Patrol Tactical Unit broke into his home and arrested Oropesa, officials said.
Deputy Superintendent Joe Luis de Chavez said the killing was “a heinous crime that has ravaged this community and this country.”
“This is a very sad time for the victims. I hope this can bring them comfort and grieve,” he said.
