A Man from Texas Is Suspected of Murdering Four Others and His Parents in Separate Attacks!

By Pennie Spruill On Dec 7, 2023

Authorities said Wednesday that the man in Texas who was suspected of killing his parents in San Antonio and four other people in Austin in a series of violent attacks had taken off the ankle monitor that was on him for a previous misdemeanor domestic violence arrest.

At a news conference in the San Antonio area, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said that 32-year-old suspect Shane James had been approached by deputies for a mental health call while he was naked at his parents’ house. Even though there was a misdemeanor warrant for his arrest for cutting off the ankle monitor, the officers did not arrest him at that time.

According to the sheriff, James will be charged with murder or capital murder in his county later this week. As a result of the killings in Austin, James has already been charged with two counts of capital murder. The attacks started on Tuesday morning and finished when the suspect crashed his car during a police chase that evening.

Police say they found four dead people in two homes in Austin, which is more than 80 miles (130 kilometers) from the San Antonio area. In Austin, someone shot and hurt a cyclist, and two police officers were being treated for gunshot wounds.

One of the officers was shot in the leg outside of a high school, according to acting Austin Police Chief Robin Henderson. Henderson said that it wasn’t clear what kind of ties the man had to the Austin area victims. In Travis County, James was being held on two counts of capital murder and minor charges from other counties, according to online jail records.

Public records don’t say if James has a lawyer, and calls made Wednesday to several people named as relatives of James did not get answered right away. “We are very sure that one suspect is responsible for all of these events,” Henderson said at a news conference early Wednesday.

Army spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ruth Castro says James was an infantry officer in the U.S. Army from February 2013 to August 2015. His last rank was first lieutenant, and he had never been sent anywhere. In San Antonio, James was charged with three misdemeanor counts of assaulting a member of his family or home, according to court records.

These charges have not been heard yet. Henderson said that police didn’t figure out that the attacks in Austin were linked until the last one, which happened at a house more than eight hours after a school police officer was shot and hurt in a parking lot on the other side of the city.

Two bodies were found inside a house in the San Antonio area, according to the sheriff of Bexar County. Deputies saw water coming out of the house, which made them think something was leaking inside. He said that the deaths seemed to have happened before the Austin killings.

According to Salazar, the suspect did what he did in Austin after this happened. According to a statement, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that the state would “impose the full weight of the law on this criminal for his despicable crimes.”A tough criminal who should never be seen again killed six Texans and their families, Abbott said in the statement.

A database kept by The Associated Press, USA Today, and Northeastern University shows that these acts were the 42nd mass killings in the United States this year. As the FBI defines it, these killings are when four or more people die within 24 hours, not counting the killer.

This year, at least 217 people have died in these types of killings. A timeline given by Texas police showed how far the suspect is said to have gone between the strikes. Henderson stated that the Austin school district police officer was shot in the leg around 10:45 a.m. Tuesday outside of Northeast Early College High School.

After getting calls about gunshots around noon, cops went to a house and found two people who looked like they had been through a lot. Authorities say one was already dead and the other died in the hospital. Dan Moyer, who lives in the area, said Wednesday that the area felt shaky even though it is usually quiet there.

The south Austin area is more than 10 miles (16 km) away from the high school where the police officer was shot. According to Moyer, it could have been him and his wife. A man riding a bike was shot just before 5 p.m. and was hurt, but his injuries are not life-threatening. Two hours later, cops were called to another home to find two people already dead from a break-in.

Henderson did not give any details about how the four people in Austin died. Henderson said an Austin police officer saw a man in the garden during the call at the last house. The man shot the officer, who returned fire and was taken to the hospital, where his condition was reported as stable.

Officers said the man, who wasn’t hurt, drove off, and they chased him. At 7:15 p.m., the suspect crashed at a highway crossroads and was jailed. According to Henderson, the man had a gun. The officer who was shot and the other police all had body cameras on, she said, and the video would be made public in 10 business days.