Suspect in Texas killings charged with murder

COLDSPRING, Texas (NewsNation) —  Francisco Oropesa, the Texas man accused of killing five people who was at the center of an urgent manhunt, was arraigned on five counts of murder Wednesday.

Oropesa and his wife were arrested in connection to the killings Tuesday evening. Oropesa was charged Wednesday with five counts of first-degree murder during a court hearing in jail and his bond was set at $7.5 million — $1.5 million for each murder charge.

Oropesa, 38, and his domestic partner Divimara Nava were plotting his escape to Mexico, authorities said.

Oropesa showered and slept at the house outside the city of Conroe on Tuesday while Divimara Lamar Nava got him doughnuts from a nearby store, a prosecutor said. Nava also acknowledged delivering a message from Oropesa to his cousins in the area asking them to help him get out of the country, the prosecutor said at Nava’s probable cause hearing. The cousins refused to help.

Oropesa and Nava were arrested in connection to the killings Tuesday evening. Oropesa was charged Wednesday with five counts of first-degree murder during a court hearing in jail and his bond was set at $7.5 million — $1.5 million for each murder charge.

Oropesa fled Cleveland, Texas, after allegedly shooting and killing five of his neighbors, including a 9-year-old boy, Friday evening after one of his neighbors asked him to stop firing off his gun in his yard.

Oropesa, a Mexican national, had been deported four times between 2009 and 2016.

Officials believe Nava provided Oropesa with material aid and encouragement, and arranged transportation to his house, Todd Dillon, criminal district attorney for San Jacinto County, said at a Wednesday news conference.

Nava is confined in Montgomery County Jail on a felony charge of hindering the apprehension of a known felon, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. She is being held on a $250,000 bond.

San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office’s Chief Deputy Timothy Kean said early Wednesday morning that several people were arrested in connection to the crime.

It is unclear how many others were arrested in connection to the killings, or if it was just the suspect and his wife.

Domingo Castilla, a friend of Oropesa, was also arrested on Tuesday but only on a charge of marijuana possession, Dillon said. Dillon said that authorities also expect to charge Castilla with obstructing Oropeza’s apprehension.

Criminal defense attorney Nicole DeBorde said on “NewsNation Now” that Oropesa could get additional charges for hiding from the police, but the district attorney’s office has to be mindful of its resources. 

“The obvious, most horrific and serious charges here deal with the murders,” DeBorde said.

The FBI said they received a “one-time random tip” from someone with “courage and bravery” on Oropesa’s whereabouts at 5:15 p.m.

U.S. Marshals, the Texas Department of Public Safety and Border Patrol’s BORTAC team responded to the home and arrested Oropesa at 6:30 p.m.

Investigators reported finding Oropesa in a closet underneath some laundry. The deputy sheriff said Oropesa had a connection to the house in which they discovered him but was unable to provide further details.

No other people were in the house when the suspect was arrested, but one person “was close” to the house. Pending an ongoing investigation, Kean said he was unable to provide further details on the arrests.

Upon arrest, law enforcement discovered Oropesa had two working cellphones. Authorities also believe they have the weapon Oropesa used in the Friday massacre, but are waiting on ballistics to confirm, Kean said.

Victims of the shooting that evening were between the ages of 9 and 31 years old. All were believed to be from Honduras.

They were shot “from the neck up,” San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said.

The victims were identified as Sonia Argentina Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 9.

Tuesday evening, Capers shared a message with surviving loved ones of the victims: “They can rest easy now because (Oropesa) is behind bars and he will live out his life behind bars.”

The deadly shooting sparked a manhunt that included more than 200 law enforcement officers from multiple jurisdictions. The FBI received tips from across the country in states like Wyoming, Florida and Maryland.

One of the five survivors called 911 at least five times to try to get law enforcement officers to the scene to stop Oropesa from shooting around before he even allegedly turned the gun on his neighbors. Law enforcement officers would not comment on the shooting response at a news conference Tuesday evening.

However, Kean said Wednesday morning that there was a patrol unit on an aggravated robbery call in the area at the time of the first 911 call.

“You have two bad things going on at once with one deputy on call,” Kean said.

He explained that at the time of the first call, the aggravated robbery trumped the initial reports of a man shooting his gun in his yard because it wasn’t an attack at that time. The deputy who responded to the aggravated robbery had to leave the robbery to respond to the second call that escalated to the shooting.

“This is not a rich county. We have three deputies to patrol this whole county,” Kean said. “It’s about half an hour drive from the jail to the scene.”

“We have poor roads, and we’re understaffed. Our response time for that area is excellent,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.