Just thirty minutes after Carmelo González left for work on 12 August, he received an alarming text from his 11-year-old daughter Maria saying that someone was knocking on the door of the apartment the two shared in Pasadena, Texas.
Mr González warned his daughter not to open the door but he never got a reply to that final text. Worried that something might have happened, he asked his brother to go check on Maria, who was nowhere to be found.
