'Unaware they were in danger': Man guns down two grandpas on morning walk in ambush-style killing, police say

A antheral has been arrested successful the slayings of 2 longtime friends and grandfathers who were changeable and killed successful an seemingly random astonishment onslaught successful a Houston park.

Charles Ernest Lopez, 24, has been charged with capital murder. A justice denied him enslaved connected Tuesday owed to the severity of the alleged crime, according to KHOU.

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On Friday, June 27, astatine astir 5:45 a.m., Natanael Fuentes Reyes, 68, and Guadalupe Flores, 74, were walking successful Wildheather Park astatine 14900 White Heather Drive successful Houston erstwhile they were shot. A neighbor's camera captured the dependable of 7 shots fired successful speedy succession; constabulary judge the victims were ambushed and perchance changeable from behind.

"As they were walking the trails, it appears that idiosyncratic either ambushed them oregon came up from down them and fired aggregate gunshots into some victims, and adjacent stood implicit them and fired much gunshots into their body," Houston Police Department researcher Michael Arrington told KHOU.

A witnesser successful the parkland reportedly saw Fuentes Reyes' and Flores' bodies and noticed a antheral successful a white, four-door sedan driving distant from the scene. That witnesser called police, and responding medics pronounced the 2 victims dead.

The pursuing Monday, officers located Lopez, the suspect, and arrested him aft a postulation stop. According to the Houston Police Department, helium "admitted to his relation successful the shooting."

Family members of Fuentes Reyes and Flores told KTRK the men were longtime friends, grandfathers, and neighbors.

The shooting did not look to beryllium a robbery, arsenic Arrington stated that thing seemed to beryllium missing from the victims. No motive has been fixed by authorities, nor is it known whether the victims and fishy had immoderate anterior relationship.

A household spokesperson for Fuentes Reyes told KHOU they are "devastated by the nonaccomplishment of their loved ones who were wholly guiltless victims."

"Natanael and Guadalupe were unaware they were successful information portion connected their greeting locomotion successful their assemblage park," the spokesperson added. "No 1 should walk distant successful this manner; it is hard to process the fearfulness and symptom they endured connected their last moments of life."

Court records reviewed by KTRK stated that ammunition casings recovered astatine the transgression country matched 2 different cases nearby.

A superior execution complaint successful Texas could effect successful the decease penalty.