3 indicted in deaths of pair, unborn child
A San Antonio man and his parents have been indicted in connection with the Christmasseason killings of pregnant teenager Savanah Soto, her boyfriend and their unborn baby.
A Bexar County grand jury charged Christopher Preciado, 19, with capital murder-multiple persons, capital murder child under 10 and capital murder-underlying robbery.
He is accused of shooting to death Soto, 18, and her 22-yearold boyfriend, Matthew Guerra, and of killing their unborn son, Fabian.
Wednesday’s indictment also charged Preciado with three counts of tampering with a human corpse, four counts of tampering with evidence and three counts of abuse of a corpse, according to the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.
Preciado’s father, Ramon, 53, and his mother, Myrta Romanos, 47, were charged with multiple counts of altering, destroying or concealing human remains, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence.
The three defendants lived in a home in the 5000 block of Charlie Chan Drive on the Northwest Side, a few blocks from where the bodies of Soto and Guerra were found Dec. 26, each shot in the head. They had been missing for days.
Police said Christopher Preciado killed Soto and Guerra when a drug deal went bad and that his parents helped him dispose of the bodies. Preciado and his parents have a court hearing scheduled for April 16 before state District Judge Jennifer Peña. All have been jailed since their arrests. The son is being held without bail, and his parents have been unable to make bail.
‘Imminent danger’
Soto grew up on the West Side and began dating Guerra when she was a sophomore at Holmes High School.
She was last seen in Guerra’s car, a gray 2013 Kia Optima, around 2 p.m. Dec. 22 at a Leon Valley apartment complex where she and Guerra lived.
Soto was about to give birth, scheduled to go to a hospital Dec. 23 so doctors could induce labor. Her family grew frantic when she failed to show up and calls to her cellphone went unanswered.
On Christmas Day, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued a missing persons alert for Soto, saying she was believed to be in “imminent danger.” The next day, she and Guerra were found dead in his Kia at the Colinas at Medical Apartments on the Northwest Side, about 3 miles from where Soto was last seen.
On Dec. 28, the San Antonio Police Department made public a security video that showed Guerra’s Kia and a black pickup pulling up side by side in a parking lot at the apartment complex. A heavyset man could be seen getting out of the pickup and talking to someone in Guerra’s car. He then took a white towel and wiped the car door before they both drove off.
Police asked for the public’s help in identifying the people in the video. They said later that Ramon Preciado was the driver of the truck and that his son was in the Kia with the victims’ bodies. Investigators believe Soto and Guerra were killed elsewhere and that the Kia was driven to the apartments and abandoned there.
Police arrested Christopher Preciado and his father Jan. 3, charging the son with capital murder and his father with abuse of a corpse and concealing human remains. A week later, Romanos was taken into custody.
Wednesday’s indictment charges Christopher Preciado with three types of capital murder because he is accused of slaying more than one person, killing a child under age 10 and doing so during the commission of another felony, a robbery. All three are aggravating factors that elevate a murder charge to capital murder under the Texas Penal Code.
“We commend the members of the local law enforcement community who jointly investigated the case and thank them for their diligence and effort,” District Attorney Joe Gonzales said in a news release Wednesday. “Now, it is our office’s turn to uphold justice for the victims.”
‘Continuing threat’
Tampering with evidence is a third-degree felony punishable by two to 10 years in prison, and abuse of a corpse is a state jail felony punishable by up to two years in a state jail facility.
Capital murder is punishable by life in prison without the possibility of parole or by death. The DA’S office has not said whether it will seek the death penalty in this case.
A “capital crimes committee” of senior prosecutors weighs the circumstances of potential death penalty cases. The wishes of the victim’s family are considered. Then the panel votes. Gonzales, who established the committee after taking office in 2019, has the final say.
If a jury convicts a defendant of capital murder in a case where the prosecution is seeking the death penalty, jurors then must decide two “special issues”: whether the defendant represents “a continuing threat to society” and whether there are “mitigating circumstances” that warrant a life prison term instead.
A person can be sentenced to death only if the jury answers yes to the first question and no to the second.
The district attorney’s office had 90 days from the date of the family members’ arrests to obtain an indictment. If it failed to do so, the defendants could have been eligible for a bail reduction or even release on their own recognizance.
Now that they’ve been indicted, the Preciados and Romanos will appear before a judge for an arraignment. The judge may set a trial date, and the defendants can enter a plea.