Juan Carlos Mata shoots dead Lesley Reyes, Pasadena, Texas woman after bad break up. Boyfriend refused to accept being dumped by his ex girlfriend.
A Texas man suspected of murdering his ex-girlfriend earlier in the week shot himself Thursday after he was spotted stalking her memorial.
Juan Carlos Mata, 20, had been on the run from cops after allegedly shooting 19-year-old Lesley Reyes in the head at a parking lot outside her Pasadena apartment Monday.
He wasn’t seen until officers received a call at 5:49 a.m. for a suspicious person near a ‘makeshift memorial’ erected outside Oakwood Village Apartments where the boyfriend is accused of pulling the trigger late Monday night.
‘Ambush attack’
Police arrived within 10 minutes and attempted to make contact with the suspected killer, only for Mata to evade arrest one last time, FOX26 reported.
‘[Mata] went behind a car, retrieved a shotgun and committed suicide in front of our officer,’ Pasadena Sgt. Raul Granados said at a press conference.
Police believe the gun was the same one he used to kill Reyes in what police are now calling a murder-suicide.
Mata was the only suspect after Reyes was fatally shot outside Oakwood Village Apartments around midnight Monday, Granados said.
Investigators said he waited outside her home for six hours before launching what police called an ‘ambush attack.’
Witnesses saw the pair arguing in the lot before shots rang out.
Investigators said Mata picked up Reyes’ phone and repeatedly cried to her mother that he was ‘sorry.’
Reyes’ parents then ran outside to find their daughter on the street.
Mata stayed on scene when police arrived, but disappeared as officers realized Reyes was dead, Granados said.
Police believe the suspected killer stayed in the area, only to ditch his phone, making it difficult for investigators to track him down.
‘He didn’t want to see her with someone else,’
‘Our detectives had been working to try and located Juan Carlos Mata by searching fields nearby. We put out his picture out to the public, hoping that somebody would give us information,’ Granados said. ‘We weren’t able to obtain any information, we just know that he showed up, back at the scene.’
Police initially described Mata as a person of interest who they wanted to question. However, on Thursday, police said Mata was the only suspect in the case and that a warrant had been issued a few hours before his death.
Reyes’ family described Mata as ‘obsessed’ with his victim and said their former relationship was ‘abusive’ and ‘toxic.’
‘She had broken up with him. There’s only one other documented incident, which was a disturbance from about a year ago. There was no instances of domestic violence that we investigated between them, but apparently he had been trying to contact her. She was trying to stay away from him,’ said Granados.
Reyes’ family said Mata did not accept the break-up and would consistently text her and show up at her home in the month before he killed her.
‘He didn’t want to see her with someone else,’ Reyes’ sister, Lourdes Martinez, told ABC13. ‘He knew what he did. He knew what he did.’
‘He didn’t just hurt my sister, he hurt our community. I know she had a lot of life ahead of her. She was just 19 years old.’
Martinez said she wants people to remember her only sister as gracious and funny.
