An infant survived a quadruple fatal shooting in Dallas over the weekend that apparently stemmed from a custody dispute.
According to an arrest affidavit, family members alerted police to the apartment early Sunday evening after the occupants hadn’t responded to phone calls during the day, ABC News reports.
Court documents identified the victims Juan Diego Cruz, Lupe Cruz, Jasmine Borja-Santos, and a fourth person identified only as “Fatima,” all found dead inside from gunshot wounds. An infant was inside the apartment but unharmed.
Police arrested Artemio Maldonado, 18, and Azucena Sanchez, 20, later Sunday night, WFAA reported. Sanchez was Juan Diego Cruz’s ex-girlfriend, and the two were reportedly involved in a bitter custody dispute, the court documents say. It’s not clear if the infant found alive at the scene was the subject of that dispute.
According to the arrest affidavit, a neighbor told police about hearing gunshots around 1 a.m. on Sunday morning but didn’t call police. Investigators saw a vehicle that matched Maldonado’s leaving the apartment complex shortly after 1 a.m. and launched a search for it, locating it at around 9:30 p.m. about a mile from the scene of the shooting. When they saw Maldonado and Sanchez walking to the vehicle, they were taken into custody.
The pair told slightly different stories, according to the affidavit, but both indicated that Maldonado shot all four of the victims. He told police they broke into a back bedroom window, confronted the victims, and shot them. Sanchez said they didn’t think anyone was home and broke in to take money. The victims confronted them, and Maldonado shot them, she said.
Before they left, she said, she took a box out of a bedroom closet that she believed contained money, but it was empty.
The suspects left the apartment through the front door, they said.
The two have been booked into the Dallas County jail on capital murder charges, KDFW reported. Police said they found a Glock handgun between the driver’s seat and door.
The infant was checked out at a hospital and is now with Child Protective Services.
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[Featured image: Artemio Maldonado, left, and Azucena Sanchez/Dallas County jail]
