It was a relatively quiet evening in The Eagle newsroom Thursday. The last reporters were packing up to leave for the night.
Then came word that convicted murderer Gonzalo Lopez — who escaped from a prison bus near Centerville three weeks ago — apparently had killed a family of five at a home along Texas 7 earlier in the day and had escaped in a white 1999 Chevrolet Silverado described as a “farm truck.”
It was the first we had heard of the killer in a while. In the days immediately after his puzzling May 12 escape, there were frequent updates from officials involved in the search. When days passed and Lopez wasn’t found, many people thought he had escaped the Centerville area and probably had headed to Mexico, where he had ties to the Mexican Mafia, one of the most dangerous gangs in the world.
It is obvious, though, the 46-year-old Lopez remained in the area, breaking into homes for food and water.
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It appears that is what he was doing Thursday when a grandfather and four grandchildren from Tomball arrived at the rural Leon County weekend home. When family members couldn’t contact any of the five, they asked law enforcement officers to do a welfare check and they discovered the bodies of the family.
Murdered were grandfather Mark Collins, 66, and his grandchildren, brothers Waylon Collins, 18, a recent graduate of Tomball High School; Carson Collins, 16; and Hudson Collins, 11; and their cousin, Bryson Collins, 11.
Officers determined the farm truck recently purchased by the family was missing. They quickly put out notice for law enforcement to watch for the truck, warning them to use extreme caution.
As The Eagle staff was running down information on the day, Jason Clark of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice held a news conference at 10 p.m., recounting events up to that time.
“Lopez is obviously a killer. He was disregard for human life,” Clark said.
Lopez was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault in 1996 and received two eight-year sentences. Ten years later, he was convicted of capital murder and aggravated kidnapping in Hidalgo County and was sentenced to life in prison.
He was given a second life sentence after being convicted of attempted capital murder in Webb County in 2007.
Then, shortly after 10:30 p.m. came word that Lopez had been killed in a shootout with law officers in Jourdanton, in Atascosa County, 38 miles south of San Antonio.
Police had spotted the truck about the same time Clark’s news conference was getting underway. Law officers gave chase and put down spike strips, which punctured the truck tires, causing Lopez to swerve into a tree.
He came out of the truck shooting at the police, who, thankfully, were not hurt. They returned fire, killing Lopez.
Minutes later, Clark was again before the media, alerting them that Lopez no longer would be able to hurt anyone. The sound you heard was a big sigh of relief from Texans who had been uneasy for three weeks.
While we mourn for the family and are relieved Lopez’s reign of terror is over, we have questions about how Lopez was able to escape and how he avoided the massive manhunt for three weeks.
The first question is harder to fathom. Lopez was being driven from his prison cell in Gatesville to Huntsville for a medical appointment. His hands and ankles were shackled and there were other prisoners on the bus. The bus driver was a prison guard and there was a second guard on the bus; both were armed.
Yet, somehow, Lopez was able to free himself and then cut through a metal barrier before attacking the driver and trying — thankfully unsuccessfully — to take his gun.
How could he do that — making plenty of noise, no doubt — moving around, with neither of the guards noticing? What’s the point of having armed guards on prison buses if they can’t prevent such escapes?
Did he have help?
After the two guards were put off the bus, Lopez took the steering wheel and started driving off. The guards shot out a rear tire, causing the bus eventually to crash.
Thus began a massive search with numerous law enforcement agencies hunting night and day for Lopez. For a while, Texas 7 was shut down, with people allowed to pass only to go to their homes in the search area.
After several days, the search was scaled back slightly, although law enforcement officials believed Lopez to be in the area still. They kept looking, regularly checking on homes in the area.
And they were right. Lopez hid out in the heavily wooded areas around Centerville.
There are many dangerous people locked up in Texas prisons.
It shouldn’t be so easy for them to escape.