Police are still sorting through the “perplexing” details of what’s believed to be a missing pregnant teen and her boyfriend found dead in a car in Texas.
The bodies of Savanah Soto, 18, and her boyfriend Matthew Guerra, 22, were discovered in a Kia sedan on Tuesday parked outside a San Antonio apartment complex, their families told local media.
San Antonio police chief William McManus said at a press conference that the deceased, who had gunshot wounds, were believed to be the missing couple, but that a final medical identification was forthcoming.
"It’s a very, very perplexing crime scene," he said. "Detectives are looking at this as a possible murder, but we’re not sure. We can’t say for sure what we have."
As of Wednesday afternoon, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s office hadn’t confirmed the identities of the bodies, NBC News reports.
Missing pregnant teen Savanah Soto and her boyfriend Matthew Guerra were found dead on Tuesday, 26 December 2023, a family member said— (Leon Valley Police Department)
An unborn child was also confirmed dead at the scene, police said, adding that the bodies appeared to have been at the site for multiple days.
“She was a good girl, she didn’t deserve to go this way, especially with her baby," Savanah’s grandmother, Rachel Soto, told KHOU. "He was an innocent child, nobody deserved this.”
Joanie Wasil, Soto’s sister-in-law, told KSAT she received a message on Facebook reporting a sighting of a grey Kia police said might be linked to Soto and Guerra’s disappearance.
Ms Wasil said that she personally saw Guerra and Soto dead inside the car, looking briefly before she “didn’t want to see anymore,” she told KSAT.
If the bodies found are indeed matches for Soto and Guerra, they would be about three miles from where they were last seen on Friday, at a different apartment complex.
Soto’s family became alarmed and called the police when she didn’t turn up on Saturday for an appointment to have her labour induced.
The Texas Department of Public Safety issued a CLEAR alert on Monday, describing Soto as a white, 18-year-old woman with brown eyes.
Authorities said she may be tied to a grey, 2013 Kia Optima with temporary Texas tags numbered 4289D57, according to the alert, which is issued when an individual is in “imminent danger” or the police suspect their disappearance is involuntary.
She was last seen on Friday afternoon at the Valencia Lofts apartment complex, where she lived with her boyfriend, the father of the child, according to her family.
Soto was a week past her due date, her family told KENS.
“It’s not normal, something’s not adding up here,” Soto’s grandmother, Rachel Soto, told the station at the time. “I want answers, we all want answers.”
Various family members of the couple offered conflicting theories about what might’ve happened.
Soto’s sister-in-law claimed her family member was being abused.
“i won’t allow you to be one of those statistics of what happens when u have an abusive boyfriend,” she wrote on social media, in a post viewed by The New York Post.
“If anyone knows my son Matthew Guerra he and his pregnant girlfriend are missing,” Guerra’s mother previously wrote on social media, according to the Post. “I know my son and he wouldn’t do anything to hurt her.”
Guerra was arrested on Christmas in 2022 for assaulting Soto and sentenced to probation, according to the Associated Press.
Gloria Cordova told KHOU her daughter was excited to be a new mother.
“Savanah was so, so happy because she was going to be a mommy. It breaks my heart,” she said.
The family has been touched by tragedy before.
Soto’s younger brother Ethan, 15, was fatally shot in 2022, in what police believe may have been a retaliation for a drug-related robbery.
