Mom still seeks answers in son’s 2016 killing
Four years ago, Angelo Polendo was running for his life when he was mortally wounded by a gunman in the middle of a West Side intersection.
His mother, Eliza Polendo, spent his final moments at his side at University Hospital but knows little else about what happened to her 37-year-old son that night. She doesn't know who killed him or why, and there haven't been any developments in the case since 2017.
“I've given up hope of finding answers,” Polendo said Friday at her home, but she still submits a request to Crime Stoppers to ask for tips in her son's case every year.
According to police, a passerby reported finding Polendo lying on the ground about 11:30 p.m. Oct. 11, 2016. The man was driving along Lombrano Street near North Sabinas when he spotted Polendo, but did not witness what occurred to him.
When police arrived, Polendo had a major injury to his head and was gasping for air.
Two other witness who were visiting friends in the neighborhood told police they heard gunshots and hid under a truck. They saw a gray Pontiac fleeing west along Lombrano Street, a police report states.
Investigators identified two men as suspects that year, but charges against them were dismissed in 2017 when the Bexar County district attorney's office said there was not enough evidence.
Investigators told Polendo's mother that ballistics from the scene and weapons that were recovered as evidence didn't match up.
Since then, police have handed the case over to cold case detectives. On Thursday, an SAPD spokeswoman said the case is still under active investigation.
The lack of an arrest has frustrated Eliza Polendo, a U.S. Army veteran, who has often tried looking for answers in her son's case herself. She said people commented on social media about knowing what happened to her son, but no one has spoken to police.
“I was going on Facebook. I was doing everything that I could possibly do,” she said.
Among the questions she still has is who took her son to the intersection where he was shot and what was he doing there.
After his cousin was killed, Polendo, who was16 years old at the time, struggled with drugs and alcohol, his mother said.
In 1998, Polendo was sentenced to prison for aggravated assault and aggravated robbery. He was released on parole in 2011, court records show.
His mother recalled hearing that her son's friend told someone he had information about Polendeo's death.
She still has a book from her
son's funeral in which the man, who was convicted of murder in 2019, wrote “love you brother.”
Eliza Polendo wrote a letter to the man, who's in prison, hoping he would share what he knew, but she has yet to receive a response.
At the time of his death, Polendo was in his last year of parole, his mother said.
Polendo was working at a local car wash and for a mobile phone company. He was also planning to start a mobile car wash business.
His mother said she and Polendo were reviewing what they needed to get the business started before he died.
“He just wanted to follow the rules and get out of parole,” his mother said. “He was just tired, tired of doing so much time and wanted to be free.”