Juan Carlos Garcia Rodriguez, dressed in a yellow jumpsuit, seemed within the 184th District Court hours after government introduced him to the Pasadena police station. The Guatemalan local required a Spanish language interpreter to hear prosecutors as they detailed their allegations towards him.
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During the listening to, prosecutor Lisa Calligan mentioned Maria advised her father a few “long-haired neighbor” within the hallway that morning. She was once assaulted and strangled quickly after her father, Carmelo Gonzalez, went to paintings.
Authorities arrested Garcia Rodriguez on a capital homicide fee within the lady’s Aug. 12 dying at a Pasadena rental she shared together with her father. Gonzalez discovered his daughter’s frame wrapped in a trash bag and crammed in a abate underneath his mattress. He had won a voice message from her previous that morning announcing that anyone was once at their rental door.
Garcia Rodriguez had moved to the complicated in July and lived close to Gonzalez, additionally from Guatemala, and his daughter, in keeping with charging paperwork.
Garcia Rodriguez entered the United States without permission in January and was once launched to a sponsor in Louisiana the next month, in keeping with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Authorities had now not known a suspect till Aug. 16, when police discovered a key discovered within the Gonzalez rental matched a door for Garcia Rodriguez’s unit, in keeping with court docket information. The defendant had, by means of then, spoken to investigators but if government returned to the rental, a roommate mentioned he had left the state.
According to charging paperwork, Garcia Rodriguez left the Main Village flats on Aug. 14 after telling his roommates he had gotten a brand new process.
Garcia Rodriguez was once named as a suspect on Friday after which arrested in Shreveport when he surrendered to government. He to begin with denied any involvement in Gonzalez’s dying however modified his tale and claimed that two armed males ordered him to sexually attack the kid, Calligan mentioned.
After the listening to, regulation enforcement and prosecutors gave no indication they had been in search of extra suspects.
“We do not believe that anybody else was involved,” Calligan mentioned.
A Pasadena police division spokesman on Thursday mentioned the killing was once nonetheless underneath investigation.
Mario Madrid, Garcia Rodriguez’s court-appointed protection legal professional, mentioned he did not search bail for his shopper as a result of of questions surrounding his immigration standing however that he would at some point.
In the period in-between, his bail was once denied by means of 184th District Court Judge Katherine Thomas.
“This is just day one of a very long story,” Madrid mentioned.
Garcia Rodriguez is scheduled to go back to court docket in October, nevertheless it may well be months earlier than government whole the investigation into the lady’s dying.
Madrid and Calligan mentioned they had been looking ahead to DNA proof to be analyzed. Prosecutors had been additionally looking for information about Garcia Rodriguez from Guatemala, which might additionally take months to obtain, Calligan mentioned.
The capital homicide offense that Garcia Rodriguez is charged with identifies the complainant as an individual older than 10 years previous and more youthful than 15 years previous. While thought to be a capital offense, that exact fee, which was once created by means of the Texas Legislature in 2019, does not carry possibility of the death penalty.
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