Fugitive murderer ended by law enforcement late Thursday

  • Gonzalo Lopez's days of outrunning the law were ended late Thursday by local lawmen, after he killed a family of five, apparently, for their truck for their truck.
    Gonzalo Lopez's days of outrunning the law were ended late Thursday by local lawmen, after he killed a family of five, apparently, for their truck for their truck.

    The Associated Press was reporting early Friday that the convicted murderer on the lam since he stabbed a prison bus driver last month and escaped during a medical transfer was shot dead by law enforcement late Thursday after he killed a family of five and stole their truck from a rural weekend cabin.

    Texas prison system spokesman Jason Clark said Gonzalo Lopez, 46, was killed about 10:30 p.m. Thursday, June 2, in Jourdanton, which is about 35 miles south of San Antonio.

    “Law enforcement in Atascosa County located the stolen vehicle, disabled it with spike strips, and gunfire ensued," Clark said in a statement.

    No officers were injured, he said.

    Lopez was killed about 220 miles southeast of Centerville, where Clark earlier said Lopez had killed a Houston family of five at their cabin and stolen their pickup truck.

    Lopez was thought to be hiding in the vicinity of the cabin when officers received a call from someone concerned after not hearing from an elderly relative, Clark said.

    Officers went to the family's cabin along Texas Route 7 west of Centerville about 6 p.m. Thursday and found the bodies of one adult and four minors, three of them children.

    Identities were not released, but gone was their white pickup truck, Clark said.

    Lopez was believed to have driven the truck from the search area, he said. Lopez was a former member of the Mexican Mafia prison gang and had ties to South Texas, he said.