SAN MARCOS SUFFERS FIRST HOMICIDE OF THE YEAR
San Marcos man, 27, found shot to death in city’s first murder of ’18.
San Marcos police are investigating the city’s first homicide of the year after a 27-year-old man was found dead at an apartment complex early Tuesday, officials said.
Medics and police responded about 2 a.m. to the Park North Condos apartment complex in the 1600 block of Aquarena Springs Drive, just off Interstate 35 near Texas State University, after a caller reported a person lying unresponsive in the parking lot.
Officers found Matthew Jacob Rodriguez, who is from San Marcos, with a gunshot wound to the chest, officials said. Hays County Justice of the Peace Maggie Moreno pronounced Rodriguez dead at the scene, and his body was taken to the Travis County medical examiner for an autopsy.
No one had been taken into custody in connection with the killing as of Tuesday afternoon, according to San Marcos city officials. Police did not say whether they had identified any suspects in the shooting.
Rodriguez’s death marked the first killing in the city this year. Anyone with information about Rodriguez’s killing is asked to contact the San Marcos Police Department at 512-753-2108 or 512-753-2300.
San Marcos police investigated five homicides last year. The first came on Feb. 9, 2017, when 21-year-old Terrance Valentine II was gunned down inside an apartment on Avalon Avenue.
City officials said Valentine was shot after he got into an argument with two men during a drug deal. Both men, identified by city officials as Devin Lamonte Bethea and Damien Douglas Harris, were later tracked down to Missouri and arrested. Harris was charged with murder, and Bethea was charged with failure to report a felony.
On June 19, 2017, 19-year-old Ryan Andrew Kincaid was shot and run over with his own car at the Laundry Basket in the 1500 block of Aquarena Springs Drive about 11:50 p.m. Kyle Sample, 19, Nichole Moore, 38, and an unidentified juvenile were arrested at a nearby Super 8 motel in connec-
tion with the crime.
On Aug. 25, Bryan Longoria died from wounds he suffered the day before during an assault at the Verandah Apartments at 1721 Inter- state 35.
An arrest affidavit says Joe Anthony Robert Sandoval was charged with murder in connection with Longoria’s death. According to the document, Sandoval’s wife told police the pair had sep- arated a few months before, and that she’d been intimate with Longoria.
Robert Lee Castaneda died Oct. 16 in the 2900 block of Hunter Road. Police found him with a gunshot wounds to the arm and torso at the Twin Lake Villas about 2:17 a.m.
The last homicide of 2017 came on Dec. 4, when San Marcos police officer Kenneth Copeland was fatally wounded while serving a warrant. The man he was serving, 51-year-old Stewart Thomas Mettz, was charged with capital murder in connection to the shooting.