An 18-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the brutal murder of a Texas girl last week.
Juan Carlos Garcia-Rodriguez is expected to be charged with first degree murder in the death of 11-year-old Maria Gonzalez, Pasadena County Sheriff’s Department. announced on Saturday. Mr. Garcia-Rodriguez has been taken into custody by the Shreveport, Louisiana Police Department and will be extradited to Texas in the following days.
He is accused of sexually assaulting Maria and strangling her to death before placing her body in a laundry basket under her bed. Maria’s father, Carmelo Gonzalez, who received text messages from her daughter saying someone was knocking on the door, found the body when he came home from work on August 12.
Pasadena Police Chief Josh Brueger said during a news conference Friday that investigators spoke to and took DNA samples from Mr. Garcia Rodriguez on the day Maria was found. He explained that Mr. Garcia-Rodriguez was living in the Gonzalez apartment complex.
Maria’s family issued a statement to Kho 11 He thanked the investigators for their commitment to finding justice for the family.
“We want to say thank you to the Pasadena Police Department, Louisiana Police, and any officials involved in bringing this cold-blooded killer into custody. This arrest has brought some peace to the family and community. We are so grateful that he can never cause anyone this kind of pain again.”
The statement continued, “I ask those responsible to do justice to us. I hope he is burdened with the full weight of the law, for what he did to my daughter.”
Police said Maria was in contact with her father the morning of her murder. Mr. Gonzalez told her not to open the door, and asked a family member who lived near the compound to check on Maria, but he couldn’t find her.
I left her alone in the apartment and she was sending voice notes that there was someone at the door. I told her not to open the door and that I was leaving for work,” Mr. Gonzalez said emotionally Univision in Spanish.
Mr. Gonzalez eventually found Maria’s remains wrapped inside two plastic bags and stuffed inside a basket. The coroner determined that Maria had been sexually assaulted and that the cause of her death was asphyxiation by strangulation and blunt force trauma to the head and neck.
Maria had immigrated to the United States with her father four years ago and had moved into their apartment just three months earlier.
Pasadena police said Mr. Garcia Rodriguez also immigrated from Guatemala and surrendered to border officers in El Paso, News Nation. mentioned.
