A man wanted after allegedly shooting dead five neighbours in Texas, including a eight-year-old boy, has been found after tip-off, police say.
Francisco Oropesa is the only suspect in one of the US’s latest mass shootings, accused over opening fire on his neighbours after they asked him to stop firing his gun outside so their newborn baby could go to sleep.
San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers said 38-year-old Oropesa was “caught hiding in a closet underneath some laundry” in the Texas town of Cut and Shoot after a tip-off to an FBI hotline.
Cut and Shoot is about 27 kilometres west of Cleveland, where last week’s massacre occurred.
“They effectively made the arrest; he is uninjured; and he is currently being taken to my facility in Coldspring,” Mr Capers said.
The sheriff’s office said Oropesa would be held on a $US5 million ($7.5 million) bond.
Wednesday’s reports came as the FBI said it was working with law enforcement agencies nationwide and in Mexico in an expanded, four-day-old manhunt for the killer sought since Friday night’s violence in Cleveland, Texas, north of Houston.
The suspect was identified this week as Oropesa, a Mexican national who immigration officials say had been deported from the US four times since 2009.
Friday night’s bloodshed erupted over noise complaints from the suspect’s neighbours, according to law enforcement officials.
Authorities said Oropesa stepped out of his house and started firing bursts from his semi-automatic rifle, prompting neighbours to ask him to stop because the gunshots were keeping their baby awake.
Wilson Garcia, whose wife and son were among those killed, said he and two others asked Oropesa to stop shooting because Mr Garcia’s new baby was sleeping. Mr Garcia said they asked their neighbour to shoot on the other side of his property, but he refused.
“We walked inside and my wife was talking to the police, and we called five times because he was being more threatening,” Mr Garcia said on Wednesday.
“We saw him, he was leaving his property and cocked his gun.
“I told my wife to get inside because he cocked his gun and he might come threaten us. So my wife said, ‘You go inside, I don’t think he will fire at me because I’m a woman, I’ll stay here at the door’.”
Mr Garcia said the gunman charged into his home minutes after, shooting his wife, Sonia Argentina Guzman, in the doorway before killing three other adults and Garcia’s son, Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman.
“One of the people who died saw when my wife fell to the ground,” Garcia told CNN.
“She told me to throw myself out the window because my children were already without a mother. So one of us had to stay alive to take care of them. She was the person who helped me jump out the window.”
He said that woman also died.
“Two people who died were protecting my 2½-year-old daughter and my one-month-old son,” a weeping Mr Garcia said.
“They protected him with a bunch of clothing so the murderer wouldn’t kill him, too. So just imagine what we’re feeling now. It was horrible.”
Mr Capers said police who were first on the scene found the victims had been shot “almost execution style” at close range above the neck.
He said authorities arrived as fast as they could, but his small team has a large area to cover. The Garcias’ home is about 15 minutes from town.
All of those killed were from Honduras and were living at the address. Not all were from the same family.
The suspect fled the scene, and as of Sunday the FBI said it had “zero leads” as to his whereabouts.
Mr Capers said deputies had been called to Oropesa’s house before over complaints about gunfire in his yard.
He said police had recovered the weapon used in Friday night’s shooting and other guns in the suspect’s home, and believed he might have been armed with a pistol when he disappeared.
The victims were identified as Ms Guzman, 25; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31; Jose Jonathan Casarez, 18; and Daniel Enrique Laso, 8.
“I feel a part of me has gone with her. I feel a part of my heart is broken,” Ms Guzman’s grieving mother Francia said.
“With God’s permission, she’ll return in a coffin so I can say goodbye even though she’ll never respond, even though she can no longer say anything to me.”
Honduran officials are preparing to repatriate the remains of the five dead.
– with AAP
