McALLEN, TX -- A South Texas man remained in custody Wednesday after police found a jacket and a gun with blood on them in his car 10 blocks from the state welfare office where his common-law wife was found bloodied in the bathroom. She later died at a hospital.
Vidal Ben Garcia III, 25, was being held on a murder charge in the death of 26-year-old Kimberly Lee Gonzalez, according to Alice Police Chief Daniel Bueno. Investigators were awaiting autopsy results to determine the cause of death, but Bueno said a scan performed at the hospital had shown metal fragments in Gonzalez's skull.
Rick Ortiz, chief investigator of the Nueces County Medical Examiner's Office said later Wednesday that Gonzalez had been shot, but referred all other questions to Alice police.
An ambulance was called to the Texas Health and Human Services office in Alice shortly before 2 p.m. Tuesday. Garcia had run out of the women's restroom calling for an ambulance, Bueno said. Gonzalez was found in a bathroom stall. After saying he would follow the ambulance to the hospital, Garcia turned in the opposite direction. Police pulled him over and after obtaining a warrant searched his car. Inside were the jacket and a .38-caliber handgun, Bueno said.
Garcia told investigators he and Gonzalez had been together off and on for more than a decade and had three children together. Gonzalez had filed several reports against Garcia in the past and had an active restraining order against him, Bueno said.
Bueno said Garcia was in the Jim Wells County Jail and bond had not been set. It was not known if Garcia had retained an attorney.
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