Father Found 11-year-old Daughter Raped And Strangled To Death Under Her Bed In Texas

Today’s case takes us to Pasadena, Texas, where 11-year-old María Elena González lived in 2023.

She was born in Salamá, a municipality in Guatemala, however due to economic needs she had to move with her father to the United States leaving her mother and her two younger brothers in their country of origin.

Her father describes her as an educated, respectful and calm girl. To this he added that she was what he wanted the most in the world.

The facts:

On August 12, 2023, Carmelo went to work at a quarter to 10 in the morning and left María Elena alone at home. At that time the girl was exchanging messages with her other daughter who was in Guatemala, so she left calmly.

But as soon as he arrived at work, the man received a message from María Elena that left him somewhat disturbed and that is that according to his daughter someone was insistently knocking on the door of his house. Carmelo told her not to open, to which she replied that she would not do it and that she would stay in bed. Unfortunately, this was the last time he talked to the girl.

Almost at the same time in Guatemala the sister who was talking to María Elena through messages began to worry since she had told her that someone was knocking on the door and since then she had not written again. The girl alerted her mother who at that time wrote to her husband to see if she knew how María Elena was doing.

Carmelo couldn’t leave work so at 1 p.m. he told his brother and sister-in-law, who lived in the same apartment complex so that they could go see how his daughter was doing.

As soon as they arrived at the apartment the couple saw several strange things: To begin with, the front door was open and there was coffee scattered on the sofa, but undoubtedly what terrified them the most was that there was no trace of Maria Elena.

Alerted by his brother Carmelo, he managed to get out of work and arrived home after 2:30 p.m. The man looked for his daughter all over the house until he suddenly noticed that the laundry basket was not there. This led him to think that the girl could have gone to wash.

But when she entered María Elena’s room he saw something didn’t expect at all... Under her bed was the laundry basket and inside it in a plastic bag he found her daughter unconscious.

Carmelo immediately called 911 to ask for help but when the emergency teams arrived they could only certify the death of the little girl.

As always happens in this type of case, the experts began to prosecute the crime scene. When moving the girl’s sheets, they found a silver key that did not belong to Carmelo and that did not coincide with the lock of the house either. What they couldn’t imagine was that this key would be key to solving the case.

On August 14, the medical examiner revealed that María Elena had been deprived of air until her death and that she had a blunt trauma to her head and neck, but not only that, the killer had also abused her.

The investigation:

The agents immediately began to investigate María Elena’s case and the first thing they did was look at the security cameras of the building. Their frustration came when they discovered that these didn’t work.

The next step was to interview the neighbors in case they could provide some information, but none of them had seen or heard anything suspicious.

Almost at the same time, the non-profit organization Crime Stoppers offered a reward of $5,000 for anyone who would take them to the arrest of the killer.

For days there was no new information about the case until on August 19, the police announced that an 18-year-old man named Juan Carlos Garica Rodríguez had been arrested in Louisiana as the alleged perpetrator of the murder of María Elena.

This boy had been a neighbor of the victim, in fact he lived in apartment 203 and Carmelo and his daughter in 204. According to police reports, shortly before the crime, father and daughter talked about Juan Carlos because when the girl went out to throw the trash he had heard a man talking on the phone near his apartment. On her return, Carmelo asked the girl who was the man who was out to what she answered: the long-haired neighbor.

The agents reached Juan Carlos because after being interviewed like the rest of the neighbors he fled, thus arousing everyone’s suspicions.

Because of this, the investigators spoke again with Álvaro and Emerson, their roommates. The boys stated that the subject was living in that house for two months and that everything seemed normal until after the crime he told them that he was leaving the apartment because he had got a job in Louisiana.

Before his departure, his colleagues asked him for the key, but Juan Carlos refused and said he would keep it. When he left they got so nervous that they changed the lock but fortunately they kept the previous one.

The agents asked for the lock and when they inserted the silver key to the crime scene they found that it coincided.

The agents discovered that Juan Carlos was also from Guatemala and that according to the records in January 2023 he entered the United States through the border of El Paso, Texas. At that moment he was arrested but then he was released.

With all this information, the Harris County District Attorney’s office issued an arrest warrant along with a photograph of the boy. In the end, on August 19, it was Juan Carlos himself who showed up at a police station in, Loiusinana to talk to the police.

The boy denied any kind of involvement in María Elena’s death and said that at the time of the events he was with some friends. Then these friends denied their alii.

Juan Carlos was immediately arrested but not only for the lack of an abi or the silver key but also because the sample he had provided of his DNA at the beginning of the investigation, like the rest of the neighbors, coincided with the one found in the girl’s body.

After being extradited, the subject appeared before the Harris County court. According to prosecutors, Juan Carlos changed his version to admit that he was involved in María Elena’s death and that his key was the one they found at the scene. To this he added something that he had neither feet nor head since according to him he abused the girl because two black men forced him to do it at gunpoint.

At the moment it is known that the boy has been accused of murder and that if he comes to trial and is found guilty he could face the death penalty.

According to several media, her lawyer requested a bail for her client, which the judge rejected, so today she remains detained in a prison in Houston, Texas.

For her part, Ana Elizabeth, the victim’s mother, lamented in tears about what happened and clarified that if the girl went to the United States with her father it was out of pure necessity since she suffers malnutrition due to the extreme poverty that lives in her country.

Although the funeral of the little girl was held in Texas, the family’s real desire was to bury her in Guatemala, but the repatriation expenses were very high. Thanks to GoFundMe, they raised almost $70,000, so María Elena is already resting in her native country.

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