Man wanted in beating death of pregnant girlfriend

Police are looking for a man accused of beating his pregnant girlfriend to death over the weekend at their Greater Inwood apartment and then telling her 8-year-old son not to wake her as he fled.

Investigators found blood-spattered walls and floors throughout the apartment Saturday in the 5500 block of De Soto Street after neighbors reported the gruesome find. The child was unable to wake his mother that morning and asked two neighbors to help him, according to court records.

Firefighters found the woman, identified as 27year-old Ashley Garcia, lying in bed with what appeared to be blunt force trauma to her head. She had been dead for several hours, Houston police investigators wrote in charging papers.

Police said they now believe 23-year-old Alexis Armando Rojas-Mendez is responsible for her death. He was charged Sunday with murder but has not been apprehended.

The child identified Rojas-Mendez as his father, according to court documents.

The boy told police that his father had warned him

Friday night not to wake his mother and that he had to go to work. When he returned, “they would be going on a trip far away,” the man said, according to the child.

The neighbors who found Garcia recalled hearing an argument in the apartment just before midnight.

Another resident in the apartment complex told investigators he saw a man beating a woman in the parking lot and trying to force her and a boy into a vehicle. He hit the woman with a cell phone and dragged her up upstairs to their apartment, police said.

“He could hear what sounded like pounding noises coming from inside the apartment,” investigators detailed in court documents.

During the investigation, Rojas-Mendez’s sister arrived at the crime scene and told police that he contacted her around 4:45 a.m. Saturday asking for money. He sounded stressed, she said, court documents state.

He already owed her $800, she said, but wanted more “so he could go work a job out of town.” She refused, investigators continued.

Authorities said they believe Rojas-Mendez may be trying to flee the country.

Garcia’s sister also stopped by the De Soto investigation and told police that the child had seen Rojas-Mendez hitting his mother in the stomach with what appeared to be a steel-toed work boot.

Police did not immediately provide a photo of Rojas-Mendez.