Tragedy waited for a Texas dad when he returned home on August 12 to find his 11-year-old daughter dead.
Carmelo Gonzalez, 32, had gone to work that morning when he received a text from his young daughter, Maria, saying a stranger was knocking on their door, Fox 26 reported.
“I told her, ‘Don’t open the door because I am arriving at work,’ and she responded, ‘I am in my bed,’” Gonzalez told the outlet, adding that his daughter was a “good, quiet girl,” who had just turned 11.
Sometime later, Gonzalez asked relatives who lived in the same apartment building to go check on his daughter, “because he hadn’t heard from her,” Pasadena Police Chief Josh Bruegger said at a press conference Tuesday, according to the New York Post.
“I called and called and called,” Gonzalez told KHOU.
Maria’s aunt and uncle went to the apartment where Gonzalez and his daughter lived alone and found the door was unlocked. When they searched the home, however, they “were unable to locate” Maria after a “cursory check,” Bruegger said.
Gonzalez returned home at 3 p.m., five hours after his daughter’s text. He found the young girl’s body inside a laundry basket that had been pushed under his bed.
“They left her under the bed in a plastic bag. They left my poor daughter,” Gonzalez told Fox 26.
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Bruegger announced at the press conference that Maria had been sexually assaulted before she was strangled, and also had blunt force trauma to the head. A medical examiner confirmed the findings.
Bruegger also said that law enforcement currently has no suspects for the “violent, violent crime,” and had already cleared some people who volunteered their DNA.
“At this point, the father’s alibi checks out, so he is — at this point, at least — not a suspect,” Bruegger added.
The apartment showed no signs of forced entry, and the suspect is believed to be someone who would have known Maria would be at home alone at the time she was killed.
“It seems awfully suspicious that Dad leaves for work and within 30 minutes you’ve got somebody knocking at the door,” Bruegger said.
The apartment complex did have security cameras but it is currently unclear if they were working at the time of the incident due to storms.
“Somebody had to have seen something and that’s what we’re asking for,” Bruegger said. “Whoever saw something around 10 a.m. at that apartment, we’re asking them to come forward with any information they might have.”
Maria’s mother is believed to be in Guatemala, and their legal status is not known.
“I do not know their legal status,” Bruegger said, adding that “it’s the least of our concerns at this point.”