6 slain, families in despair after Houston’s deadliest day
Series of killings adds to rising violence in the city amid a pandemic
The grief-stricken family of Rene Cantu wielded a concrete chunk to hammer a white cross into the ground to mark where on Montrose Boulevard he was shot to death.
Cantu had left his wallet at home, likely to set off on a predawn jog, on Nov. 9, relatives said. As loved ones of the 34year-old University of Houston employee stood where a bystander found him collapsed on the sidewalk, they wondered what led up to the shooting. The attack happened out of sight of surveillance cameras at a neighboring gas station and law of
fice. His family checked the building facades, just to be sure, and embraced each other in tears.
Next on their list on Sunday afternoon was to finish packing up Cantu’s Museum District apartment. There, his mother, Hilda Cantu, helped to clean up her only child’s kitchen. She clutched a wooden piggy bank that was found among his possessions.
“I don’t knowwhat to do anymore,” she cried.
Cantu’s unsolved death kicked off the year’s deadliest day in the city. The mayhem — which added to Houston’s rising violence amid a pandemic —
continued for 12 hours and left six people dead, including a Houston Police Department sergeant. Officials have since attributed at least 347 deaths to murders and are bracing for the possibility that Houston could top 400 deaths of that nature by year’s end.
Also killed on that violent Monday were Julio Barreno Vasquez, 23; Francisco Ortega, 69; Dietrich Hawkins, 28; Danielle Bradley, 39; and Sgt. Sean Rios, 47, whose funeral is Wednesday. Rios was shot and killed along Interstate 45 during an off-duty confrontation — possibly over a road rage incident — with Robert Soliz near the Taj Inn & Suites. Soliz faces a murder charge in Rios’ death.
HPD Commander Belinda Null, who has led the Homicide Division since April, said it was one of the busiest days that she could recall. But despite the high number of death investigations, they still had homicide investigators to spare.
She got a hint of the growing chaos by the fourth death around noon, but the day did not end there.
“The officer shooting was when we realized how busy it was going to be,” Null said.
‘He didn’t deserve this’
Elsewhere in Houston that morning, Ortega was waiting for the bus to ferry him to a doctor’s appointment at Memorial Hermann when a stranger lodged a knife in his neck.
A14-year-old girl heard the commotion, looked out a window toward the 5100 block of Yellowstone Boulevard in south Houston and witnessed the gruesome killing. She dialed police to report that her neighbor — a man she had known for most of her life — was being attacked, she said.
“He didn’t deserve this,” the girl continued, recalling the moment in sobs as her mother comforted her.
Police apprehended 30-yearold Demarquis Porch, who was charged with murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the stabbing of another man down the street.
Antonio Martinez, Ortega’s roommate and caretaker, said he
hailed from the Mexican state of Chihuahua — where he had farmed and worked with horses. Ortega, a resident of their group home for at least a decade, was receiving help from the Catholic Worker Movement’s Casa Juan Diego because of his ailing heart, he said.
“I feel bad because we were taking care of him,” Martinez said.
Martinez, wiping away tears with his shirt, said he can still see his friend covered in blood.
“I remember every moment,” he said.
After the stabbing, and although Ortega had already died, Martinez called a retired priest to deliver his last rites.
Isidro Hernandez, Ortega’s nephew in West Texas, said his uncle first came to the United States in 1979 to find a better life. If he had stayed in Mexico, Hernandez believes his uncle would have died “a long time ago.”
In the coming weeks, Hernandez said he plans to take Ortega’s ashes back to Chihuahua.
A second son lost
Police have made arrests in all but two of the six slayings.
Barreno Vasquez was found dead of a gunshot wound outside
Collins Elementary School, less than an hour before children were slated to start class. Neighbors in Chinatown heard gunfire that morning but saw nothing in the pre-dawn fog, police said.
No suspects have been identified. Officials have since notified Barreno Vasquez’s family in Guatemala of his death.
Aaron Domanguex surrendered to police hours after the shooting death of Hawkins outside his frequent Adams Food Store hangout in the 2700 block of Ala
bama Street in Third Ward. He got a ride from his uncle to the Joint Processing Center and asked to speak with a detective, prosecutors said, describing a probable cause document.
“So he could give his side of the story,” prosecutors said.
Domanguex, described as a panhandler in the area, alleged that Hawkins had recently been disrespectful to his mother and shortchanged him in a recent drug deal, according to the court records.
The death of Hawkins meant that his mother, Kimberly Scott, had lost her second son; the first died in 2012. Scott said she would be keeping an eye on Domanguex’s case and praying that he would not be released on bond.
“He was bold to do it in broad daylight,” Scott said. “That’s a killer.”
An AK-47
In Bradley’s death, police apprehended Jon Parfait, who said hewas opening fire on armed men at a Motel 6 at 12550 Kuykendahl Road in Greater Greenspoint. He instead struck a truck with Bradley — whom he knew — inside, court records show. Parfait then fled to a wooded area with an AK-47 firearm in a duffel bag.
Parfait told investigators “he ran to the woods because he knew the police would be coming,” and “he did not mean to kill anyone,” a prosecutor said in court.
Bradley’s family could not be reached for comment.
In the case of Cantu, his cousin, Roland Castillo, hopes a reward can be offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction. He was unaware of any leads investigators may have gleaned toward catching his killer.
The night before his death, Cantu spent most of the evening with Castillo and returned home.
“Be careful,” Castillo recalled telling him. “We’ll see you Thanksgiving.”
That Monday came and went and Cantu’s family was unaware that something had happened to him. Social media messages from his friends to Castillo later the next day then asked if anyone had seen him. Cantu was not answering calls or responding to text messages.
“That’s whenw e started worrying,” Castillo said.
He saw a news report of a fatal shooting on Montrose, blocks from where Cantu lived, and called the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. He described his cousin and supplied a date of birth. It was Cantu, they told him.
The family, they decided, would wait until last Wednesday to tell his mother what happened to her only son.