John Jefferson
Inset: Slain ISD police dispatcher Jose Torres (Spring Branch ISD Police Department). Background: Authorities at the home of Jose Torres on Friday, Nov. 15 (KHOU/YouTube).
A 22-year-old man in Texas has confessed to killing his uncle — an Independent School District police dispatcher who, with the man’s aunt, raised him “as their own son” — because he felt “unwelcomed and unloved” by him, according to prosecutors.
Antonio Guzman, who is reported to be the nephew of victim Jose Torres’ wife, is accused of shooting the 37-year-old in the face multiple times at Torres’ home in the northwest Houston neighborhood of Spring Branch on Friday after meeting him alone there, according to Harris County prosecutors.
Court filings in Texas’ 497th Judicial District Court outline how Guzman allegedly confessed to killing his uncle over the way he was treated by him after being taken into custody by the Harris County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday.
“[Torres] and his wife had raised Defendant as their own son,” prosecutors alleged in a Nov. 17 motion for sufficient bail. “Defendant showed up at [Torres’] home and shot and killed [Torres] when the two were alone. Defendant later confessed to shooting [Torres] because he felt unwelcomed and unloved by [Torres].”
According to prosecutors, Guzman shot his uncle multiple times in his face and “upper extremities” before leaving him to die. It wasn’t until his aunt realized something was wrong after not hearing from Torres all day — with the woman asking Torres’ mother to pick her and their kids up from work and school — that his body was discovered upon their return home.
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“[Torres] didn’t pick wife/kids up from work/school, wasn’t answering phone,” a description says in a Nov. 17 probable cause for further detention order. “Wife called [Torres’] mother to take them home, where they found [Torres] on the floor, bloody, unresponsive and cold.”
Guzman’s aunt allegedly told police that the young man has a gun, “anger control issues” and a noticeable limp caused by a “foot ailment,” according to prosecutors, which was allegedly caught on surveillance video as he fled the murder scene.
Deputies with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office were able to track Guzman down through his escape vehicle, with him being arrested and charged with murder on Sunday. He was being held on a $200,000 bond Monday and was ordered by a judge to have no contact with his family, should he be released.
Torres, a dispatcher for the Spring Branch Independent School District Police Department, was memorialized by his colleagues in a Facebook post on Saturday.
“Jose leaves behind a wife and two beautiful daughters,” the department said in a separate statement, per local NBC affiliate KPRC. “He was taken from us by a senseless act of violence while he worked to make a better life for his family.”
Neighbors say they saw Torres trimming trees outside his home before he was killed.
“He was by himself,” resident Sheldon Bolmar told Fox affiliate KRIV. “And that was it.”
Guzman, who has no known criminal history, waived his first appearance in probable cause court over the weekend, per local reports. He’s scheduled to appear again on Tuesday.
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