San Benito, TX: Apparent murder-suicide investigated

November 07, 2011 9:35 PM
By ALLEN ESSEX/Valley Morning Star
SAN BENITO — The bodies of a man and a woman were found outside their home south of here, in what investigators are calling a murder-suicide.



Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio said the bodies of Leticia Jimenez Trejo and Martin Calderon, both 43, were found at 22156 Del Valle Ave., near Sam Houston Boulevard and FM 800, an area known as Tecosville.



Trejo’s son, Luis Medina, 21, who Lucio said often visited his mother, went to the house between 5 and 6 a.m., Lucio said.



Medina saw Calderon outside the house. When the son asked about his mother, Calderon told him she was in inside.



Calderon then told Medina that he needed to call law enforcement, Lucio said.



That statement by Calderon alarmed Medina, who called 9-1-1 as he drove away, Lucio said. Medina told deputies he heard a gunshot as he drove away.



When deputies arrived, they found Calderon’s body first behind the house, and then found Trejo’s body in Calderon’s car, the sheriff said.



Calderon had left a note saying the deaths were a murder-suicide and that he was sorry, Lucio said.



Investigators recovered a 9 mm handgun, the sheriff said.



The time of Trejo’s killing has not been determined and her son did not notice that she was in Calderon’s car as he sat in his vehicle, the sheriff said.



Deputies at first identified Calderon as his brother, Roberto Calderon, because he was carrying the other man’s identification, but it is not yet known why, Lucio said.