The Pharr brothers accused of beating their 42-year-old stepfather to death after learning that he had been accused of sexually abusing their half-sister have been indicted.
A Hidalgo County grand jury indicted Alejandro Santos Treviño, 18, on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and his brother, 17-year-old Christian Treviño, on charges of capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
Juan Eduardo Melendez, the brothers’ 19-year-old friend, is also facing an indictment charging him with capital murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
He is scheduled to be arraigned on the indictment early next week.
All three were indicted on May 19, county court records show.
Pharr police arrested the trio following the Jan. 20 death of 42-year-old Gabriel Quintanilla, whose body was found in a field near McColl and Whalen roads in McAllen.
The case entered the national conversation soon after making local headlines, with an outpouring of online support for the brothers as strangers from all around the country backed their alleged vigilantism.
Investigators believe the teens became enraged after learning that Quintanilla had been accused of sexually assaulting their 9-year-old sibling.
And Pharr police had actually been looking for Quintanilla for an unrelated sexual abuse allegation dating back to 2019.
Investigators only learned about the recent allegation after they notified Quintanilla’s mother about his death. She told investigators that she last saw her son on Jan. 19, when she dropped him off at a residence in the 1200 block of E. Moore Road, which is where the mother of his children lived, according to probable cause affidavits.
Investigators then went and spoke to the mother of Quintanilla’s children, and she told them about the alleged molestation of her daughter and that her two sons had assaulted Quintanilla after learning about it, which is also the first time police learned about that sexual abuse allegation.
FOUR CRIME SCENES
The first assault happened at the home where the brothers lived, according to police.
Alejandro told investigators that Christian chased Quintanilla out of the residence, according to the affidavits.
That document said a male juvenile who heard the assault but did not witness it went outside and asked Alejandro where Christian was, which is when Melendez arrived in a red Dodge Charger and all three of them left to search for Christian.
The trio found Christian at an apartment complex on Linden and Coyote streets. He was beating Quintanilla with brass knuckles when they arrived, according to police.
The juvenile told investigators that Alejandro and Melendez jumped out of the car and joined Christian in the beating.
This was the second assault.
All four then left to Melendez’s home. They then boarded a white Ford F-150 and headed back to the brothers’ home, where Alejandro was dropped off and Christian picked up clothes, according to the affidavit.
Then Christian, Melendez and the juvenile left and found Quintanilla walking south on Veterans Boulevard where they assaulted him once more, rendering him unconscious and placing him in the truck bed where the juvenile could hear him moaning in pain and “snoring very loud,” according to the affidavit.
Alejandro was not present for the third assault, which included a kidnapping, according to the indictments against Melendez and Christian.
Those two are facing the capital murder charge because of the alleged kidnapping and because Christian allegedly took a watch he had gifted to Quintanilla after dropping his body off in the open field by Whalen and McColl where a farmer later found his body.
This is the fourth and final crime scene.
Even there, investigators believe Christian considered assaulting Quintanilla again, but the juvenile intervened, according to the affidavit.
Christian and Alejandro are scheduled to be arraigned on their indictments in July.
All three remain jailed at the Hidalgo County Adult Detention Center.
Alejandro and Christian are being held on a total of $150,000 in bonds while Melendez is being held on $750,000 in bonds.
