Harlingen police continue to wait for a state laboratory to finish DNA tests of human remains found Feb. 10, 2020 in a brushy lot west of Business 77 in San Benito.
Commander John Parish of the Harlingen Police Department on Friday said that after the state agency identifies the remains, the results will be submitted to investigators at the Harlingen Police Department.
Until then, there is no way to confirm whether the remains could be that of Elyn Loera, 32, whose mother has been searching for her since October 2019. Loera, of Corpus Christi, told her mother Rosie Loera that she was traveling to Harlingen to visit her boyfriend, Anthony Eliff III.
Loera said she last saw her daughter in September 2019 as she boarded a bus to make the trip to the Rio Grande Valley.
Harlingen police in a previous interview with the Valley Morning Star said they were investigating whether the remains belonged to Elyn Loera.
Although Rosie Loera tried to get her daughter to tell her the exact location of where she was staying, her daughter didn’t want to give her an address.
The police department had not said if they connected Eliff to her disappearance.
In the meantime, Eliff remains jailed in Cameron County on a $1.9 million bond for the murder of a Harlingen man.
Eliff is accused in the Feb. 6, 2020 shooting death of 41-year-old Guillermo Garcia. He was found inside a parked vehicle with a gunshot wound to the chest.
Harlingen PD wrote in a February 2020 press release that officers responded to the 3300 Block of Adams Landing in reference to reports of a male that was shot. “The male had, what appeared to be, a single gunshot wound to the chest,” the department stated.
A Cameron County grand jury on March 25, 2020, indicted Eliff on one count of murder. The indictment states that Eliff “did then and there intentionally or knowing cause the death of an individual, namely, Guillermo Garcia, by shooting Guillermo Garcia with a handgun.”
Eliff on Sept. 15, 2021 requested his $1.9 million be reduced, which was granted. However, he remains in the Cameron County Jail system.
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