Family deaths report due soon
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar has told his investigators he wants their final report on the shooting deaths of Nichol Olsen and her two daughters by Christmas, another indication the nearly two-year investigation soon will be closed.
That timeline, which Salazar revealed during a briefing with reporters Wednesday, suggests he is trying to accommodate a recent request by one victim’s family seeking disclosure of investigators’ findings.
Salazar said he would like to have that report by mid-december or Christmas, but he gave investigators a “hardstop” deadline of Dec. 31.
The Sheriff’s Office has finished gathering information on the case, he said.
“We’re done digging. We’re done issuing subpoenas,” the sheriff said. “Now it’s just a matter of compiling it and summarizing it in a report.”
Olsen, 37, a hairstylist, and her two daughters, Alexa Montez, 16, and London Bribiescas, 10, were found shot to death at a luxury home in the Anaqua Springs Ranch subdivision near Leon Springs on Jan. 10, 2019.
At the time, the home was owed by Olsen’s boyfriend, Charles Edward Wheeler, 33, a former rodeo competitor and an oil and gas entrepreneur.
Wheeler told investigators he’d left the house around 10 p.m. the night before, after an argument with Olsen, and went to stay with his parents.
Withindays of the shootings, the Bexar County medical examiner’s office ruled Olsen’s death a suicide and the children’s deaths homicides. The autopsy reports haven’t been released because of the ongoing investigation.
Though the sheriff previous
ly described Wheeler as a “person of interest,” no one has been charged in the shootings.
Salazar sent an email to attorney for Bribiescas’ family earlier this week, saying the case soon will be closed and revealing that the Sheriff’s Office has found no evidence to indicate the deaths were anything but a murder-suicide. He repeated that during Wednesday’s media briefing.
“Nothing that I have seen to this point in the case would lead me to refute or try to overturn the medical examiner’s ruling,” the sheriff said.
Investigators reviewed phone records, text messages, surveillance video, gunshot residue tests and GPS records showing people’s whereabouts at specific times.
The Secret Service also assisted in the case by suggesting the Sheriff’s Office purchase a device that allows investigators to retrieve data from a vehicle, such as a car’s location at specific times, whether anyonewas sitting in the vehicle besides the driver and a car’s direction and speed of travel. That device presumably was used to examine Wheeler’s truck, which was towed from the house after the shootings.
Salazar said the Sheriff’s Office bought the device and has used it in many cases since.
The FBI also helped with the Anaqua Springs investigation in a number of ways. Among them, its Behavioral Analysis Unit studied photographs of the crime scene.
Joe Hoelscher, the San Antonio attorney representing Bribiescas’ family, welcomed news that the Sheriff’s Office soon may finish its report on the case.
“London’s family will wait for Salazar to keep his word eagerly and in hope that they will find closure soon,” he said in a text message.