Posted on 02/16/2003 8:55:22 AM PST by buffyt
Police Standoff in NW Harris County. Yet another Love Triange Gone Bad in Texas....
An eight-hour standoff that began with the shooting of a Houston police officer ended with a horrifying discovery early Saturday when detectives found six bodies, including those of three children, in a north Harris County home.
The man who lives at the home, in the upscale Charlestown Colony subdivision near Texas 6 and West Little York, fatally shot his wife, three young daughters and a girlfriend before turning the gun on himself, sheriff's detectives said. Authorities believe the women and children had been dead since Monday, and the man stayed in the house with the bodies all week.
Detectives think the man lost control and went on a violent rampage because both his wife and girlfriend were ending their relationships with him. Some of the victims were shot multiple times, said Harris County Sheriff's Sgt. T.E. Kiser.
None of the six had been officially identified Saturday night, but at least one of them is believed to be Flor Estela Roque, a 28-year-old northwest Houston woman believed to be the man's girlfriend, missing since Monday. Autopsies and formal identification of the victims will be done today.
The shocking scene was discovered after a tense, lengthy standoff that began when officers went to the man's two-story brick home at 5722 W. Vistaglen Loop around 5 p.m. Friday to investigate his girlfriend's disappearance.
After hearing sounds of someone in the house but getting no answer at the door, investigators broke a window to go inside, and someone in the home started shooting. One of the investigators, Sgt. Mike Bozeman, 45, was shot once in the abdomen before he was carried to safety by his partners. He is expected to survive.
At least one of the officers returned fire into the home, but did not hit the gunman, said Kiser.
Using loudspeakers and the telephone, authorities pleaded with the gunman hiding in the house to surrender, but got no response for eight hours. When officers entered the home after 2 a.m. Saturday, they found a grisly scene.
In the kitchen, stuffed into a large drum covered by a blanket, were the bodies of two of the man's daughters, ages 4 and 10. The drum was loaded with kerosene and wood chips, and it appeared someone had tried to burn the drum's contents, said sheriff's Lt. Danny Billingsley.
The man's wife was found dead in a dining room chair, covered by a blanket, with her head thrown back and her feet sticking out, Billingsley said.
Upstairs, officers found the body of another woman lying on the floor at the entrance to one of the bedrooms. She had also been covered with a blanket.
In the master bedroom, lying in bed, was the man's other child, a 6-year-old girl, also partly covered by a blanket. And in one of the children's rooms, officers found the man dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Authorities found a two-page, handwritten note with dates and times of what happened in the house and an explanation of why the man went on the rampage, but declined to release many details about the contents of the note.
"His wife filed a petition for divorce, and his girlfriend left him, and he talked a little about his children. He was obviously not a well man," Billingsley said Saturday.
The man's mother, who lives in Killeen, talked to him on the phone Friday, but he didn't reveal what he had done, investigators said. "She kind of sensed something was wrong, but not to the drastic extent that it was. She sensed marital problems," Billingsley said. "He obviously wasn't telling them the truth.
"He did make a statement to relatives that he couldn't live without the girls, and the girls couldn't live without him," Billingsley said.
Authorities also recovered two handguns from the home. Both were found upstairs, one next to the dead man's body, Kiser said.
Based on neighbors' reports and the condition of the bodies, detectives believe the women and children were probably killed late Monday afternoon. Neighbors heard several gunshots between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m., but no one called authorities.
Roque was last seen around lunchtime Monday when she asked permission to leave work to go meet someone, family members said. She never returned.
Her family learned around 8 p.m. that night that Roque never picked up her 5-year-old son from school.
Neighbors could not recall any prior discord at the gunman's home. Next-door neighbor Ronnie Parker, 45, said his wife went to the family's home around 7:30 a.m. Monday morning to tell them a water valve was leaking outside.
The husband answered the door fully dressed and seemed startled by her visit, Parker said. Normally very chatty, he had little to say that day. He walked outside with Parker's wife to look at the leak, then abruptly turned and went back inside the house.
Though the gunman was still living with his wife and daughters, he apparently wanted to marry Roque. But she had no desire to marry him, her relatives said.
The gunman and his wife, meanwhile, had a history of marital trouble. They sought a divorce once previously, in June 2000, but didn't go through with it.
In that case, the man's wife had left him and taken the children with her to Connecticut, so he filed for divorce, said attorney Pauline Ike, who represented him in that proceeding. But the man was distraught about losing his children.
"I know for sure he didn't want to go through with the divorce. He still loved (his wife) -- he wanted her back. She was the one who did not want him back," Ike said Saturday.
"He loved his children. He loved those kids. He kept on showing me pictures of the girls. The children were the focal point -- he did not want her to take the children."
The following month, the couple agreed to continue living together, but only in a platonic sense, for the sake of the children, Ike said. The pair agreed to keep separate bedrooms, she said.
Nothing about the husband would have indicated such violence, Ike said. "It's a terrible shock," she said. "He had a very good job. He was well-dressed, very handsome looking, very proper. He was cordial, he was nice -- the appropriate middle-class man."
The couple was married 14 1/2 years ago in Mississippi, Ike said. Neighbors said the husband was self-employed, while his wife stayed at home with the children.
Roque worked as a receptionist at Ford Motor Co.'s Houston High Velocity plant, and her married boyfriend helped her get that job, her family said Saturday.
The man previously worked there as well, but quit, Roque's family said. A district manager at the plant declined comment Saturday.
Roque's family is shattered by the tragedy and wept quietly when her photo was flashed across TV screens Saturday. Some buried their faces in their hands.
"I feel sick, missing my sister," said Roque's younger brother, Robert Hernandez, 17. "He seemed calm. I never thought he would do something like that."
Roque's mother, Enedalia Hernandez, 48, said she couldn't understand the violence.
"Why did he have to do that to her? She didn't deserve that. She never harmed anybody," Roque's mother said of her firstborn, speaking through a translator.
"She was a very good daughter, beautiful, loving. I loved her a lot."
The wounded officer, shot by the gunman through an upstairs window at the home, remained at Memorial Hermann Hospital Saturday night in critical but stable condition.
Bozeman will likely have to undergo more surgery in the next day or two, and is in a lot of pain, fellow officers said.
Bozeman, a homicide investigator, is married with a 10-year-old child. His wife is also a Houston Police Department homicide investigator.
The discovery of the remains Saturday brought the homicide toll in the unincorporated areas of Harris County to 10 so far this year.
SEE IT NOW
Video: • Police standoff in northwest Harris County
Map: • Interactive map of the area around the home
His lawyer is a damn liar.
Which everyone, especially in Texas, knows is worse than being just a liar.
Looks like their trying to shift the blame from the sicko who killed his children, to his wife.
What amazes me is neighbors heard gun shots monday night but didn't call authorities. I hope there are no acts of "terrisn" in my neighborhood. There could be an orange cloud floating down the street or a mushroom cloud on the horizon and nobody would call authorities.
Gee, a history of having of married boyfriends (read the narrative) doesn't really fit my definition of "never harmed anybody".
It does seem to be a sign of the times when reporters casually mention that a man shoots his wife and girlfriend - like the two aren't supposed to be mutually exclusive anymore (kinda like Bill and Hillary and Monica - just one big alternative "family"...)
Other than the children, I have no sympathy here.
That doesn't seem very tolerant of them.
When you love people you make sacrifices for them. When did we stop teaching that?
Yes, and if you say anything else about it...even here on Free Republic, you're in big trouble. Almost no one wants God telling them how to live anymore. Then, when things like this happen, everyone is wondering WHY? What a joke.
If you have a wife, you should not have a girlfriend.
If you have a girlfriend, you should not have a wife.
Once you have a wife, you should have nothing to do with any ex-girlfriends. Once you no longer have a wife (through divorce or death), you can begin to have girlfriends again. And, especially when children are involved, it's best to tread v-e-r-y carefully when making the transition from one to the other.
It really needs to be no more complicated than that.
I think that's why God gave women the gift of being suspicious as hell about any other relationships her man has. What's gone astray is that women no longer see married men as "attached" and respect another's territory. Men *ought* to respect the bonds of marriage but history tells us they'll often succumb to temptation if given the chance (not all, mind you, but definitely some). It's been woman's traditional role in society to make sure men don't stray and what I find appalling is that nowadays a lot of women don't seem concerned about fooling around with a married man as long as they get the money/attention/satisfaction they want.
In fact, some women think it's "safer" because they have that whole guilt thing they can hold over the man's head, plus they always believe that crap about him being ready to leave her when, if he did, he'd have already done so.
There's plenty of blame to throw around on both sides. But that whole "for better or worse" thing is something people should ignore at their own peril.
They almost never show you the downside of living like a slut on these tv shows. I wish they would. Maybe some folks would learn that there are consequences before they make the mistake. Instead, Hollywood morals (an oxymoron) have seeped into our culture like the steady drip of an IV.
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