A Hidalgo County grand jury has indicted a 30-year-old Mission man on two counts of murder for his alleged role in a fatal home invasion more than six years ago.
Jose Eduardo Espinoza is scheduled to be arraigned on those charges, as well as a count of aggravated robbery, on Wednesday.
Espinoza, who was arrested on May 1 after the Texas Department of Public Safety pulled him over for reckless driving and discovered the murder warrant from the McAllen Police Department, is accused of causing the deaths of 22-year-old Mission resident David Allen Means and 32-year-old Pharr resident Arturo Hinojosa on Feb. 1, 2014.
Detectives began investigating Espinoza after he accidentally called Means’ brother and left a voicemail where the man heard several voices talking about leaving someone at the hospital and to run traffic lights.
The man called Espinoza back.
According to a probable cause affidavit, Espinoza told the man to start checking the hospitals for his brother.
Minutes after that phone call, someone found Means lying on his back with a gunshot wound to his chest in the parking lot of a Mission hospital.
The probable cause affidavit alleges Means left his home the night he died with Espinoza.
McAllen police found Hinojosa lying in the grass bleeding in front of a residence at 4805 La Vista Ave. and authorities say in the affidavit that he used his dying words to tell a detetcive that he and four other men were at the residence to steal marijuana.
While at that scene, officers met then 33-year-old Hector Nicolas Medina Castillo who lived at the residence, authorities say.
“He told the officer somebody came to his residence to rob him and that they shot at him,” the probable cause affidavit stated. “He also told the officer he had fired back at the males and that he had hit someone.”
The officer who spoke to Castillo searched the immediate area for a light-colored SUV seen speeding away, but the officer couldn’t find it, according to the affidavit, which says he encountered a woman backing a bullet-riddled maroon Chevy Tahoe out of the driveway when he returned.
“The officer told them they could not leave,” the charging document stated.
Authorities say in the document that’s when Castillo told the officer he was going to walk his wife and children to a nearby relatives’ home.
Castillo has never been arrested and McAllen police have warrants for murder and aggravated robbery for him.
Investigators reported finding blood on a walkway to the house, bullet holes in the front of the residence, spent rifle casings inside the home and several bundles of marijuana.
Only one other person has been arrested in the case. He’s 31-year-old Jaime Horacio Saldivar.
Authorities arrested Saldivar in 2015 and in 2016, he entered guilty please to two counts of murder and a count of aggravated robbery. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and is eligible for parole in November.
Espinoza remains jailed on $1.5 million in bonds.
