A third man has been charged with murder and attempted murder over the shooting of two brothers following an armed confrontation at a Mission Stripes in October.
On Sunday, the sheriff’s office booked 31-year-old Mission resident Ricardo Adrian Mata into the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center.
The warrant for his arrest was issued Oct. 20, less than a week after the Oct. 14 shooting that killed 22-year-old Leonardo Veliz and critically injured his brother, 21-year-old Emmanuel Veliz.
The affidavit for Ricardo Adrian Mata’s arrest also reveals there was a third vehicle allegedly involved in the shooting.
Affidavits and news releases initially released after the fatal shooting indicated that the Veliz brothers shared their live location with a friend named Obed Peña, a 27-year-old Mission resident.
The brothers were in a Nissan Versa and Peña and 21-year-old Jose Maria Victoria, a Peñitas resident, were in a gray Dodge Ram.
Peña is wanted on charges of attempted murder and murder, and Victoria remains jailed on $2 million in bonds on the same charges.
Investigators have said in affidavits that Victoria tried to assault Leonardo with a brown handgun at the Stripes on FM 492 and State Highway 107.
The brothers had shared the location with Victoria and Peña to drop something off, either the Dodge Ram those men were in or something else. The affidavits are not clear here.
After the armed confrontation at the Stripes, the brothers chased Victoria and Peña to the area of 6 Mile Line and Bentsen Palm Drive, which is where the brothers were hit by gunfire that ended when a friend of theirs shot back at Victoria and Peña, according to probable cause affidavits.
The affidavit for Ricardo Adrian Mata’s arrest on the charges alleges that he was present in a third vehicle, a silver Chevrolet truck seen driving away from the scene of the shooting.
Investigators interviewed his ex-girlfriend, who signed an affidavit saying he was in possession of that truck, which she owned, and that he called her that day saying he and another man were involved in a shooting, according to his arrest warrant.
Detectives also linked him to the shooting through his phone records, which showed calls between him and Peña before and after the shooting.
Deputies that day found the brothers at around 3:32 p.m. next to the Nissan Versa they were in, which had a broken back window with apparent bullet holes.
The brothers were transported to a Mission hospital where Leonardo died before Emmanuel was taken to DHR in Edinburg for further medical treatment.
Records obtained by The Monitor indicate that in May 2019, Emmanuel was shot in an unrelated incident with an AK-47 after he was kidnapped.
Ricardo Serna, a 27-year-old Mission man, is charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in that case.
He has not been arraigned on the indictment because he has been in federal custody since his arrest after that incident. Last week, he was sentenced to more than 18 years in federal prison on charges of taking hostages and participating in a violent crime involving drugs and a machine gun for kidnapping two other men.
Ricardo’s father, Rodrigo, was also charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault over Emmanuel’s alleged kidnapping, but he died from heart disease in August and the charges were dropped.
The Sernas claimed Emmanuel was trying to rob them, but investigators allege they owed Emmanuel money and he went to their house seeking to collect.
Victoria, the man charged with shooting Emmanuel and Leonardo, is also named in the indictment against the Sernas.
That document alleges the Sernas threated Victoria with a firearm, which allegedly happened the same day Emmanuel was shot.
Other records indicate that Emmanuel, Leonardo and Victoria all knew each other at the time of the May 2019 kidnapping.
There are three other people who are also charged in relation to the Oct. 14 shooting following the armed disturbance at the Mission Stripes.
They are 19-year-old Jonathan Mora, 21-year-old Peñitas resident Rolando Tovar Sanchez and 18-year-old Mission resident Angel Mata.
They are all charged with tampering or fabricating physical evidence over allegations they helped Emmanuel and Leonardo get rid of the guns used in the shooting.
An affidavit also indicates that Sanchez is the one who shot back at Victoria and Peña.
Those three remained jailed on $75,000 in bonds.
As of early Monday afternoon, jail records didn’t indicate a bond had been set for Ricardo Adrian Mata.
