Four killed in Rio Grande City shooting incident

RIO GRANDE CITY — Homicide investigators cringed Tuesday evening as Ruth Gonzalez cried over her sister’s body.

Lydia Pinal died from several gunshot wounds just hours earlier. Gonzalez was the family member responsible for identifying her sister for investigators.

According to the family, Pinal’s husband fatally shot her, her mother and another woman at a residence on the 1700 block of West Main Street in Rio Grande City. The husband, Francisco Pinal, then left the home, drove to his own residence and turned the gun on himself.

Officials responded about 4:30 p.m. to the report of a possible homicide near the intersection of U.S. 83 and Old El Sauz Road.

Lydia Pinal was working as a home caregiver when her husband followed her to a client’s residence in Rio Grande City. The woman who lived in and owned the home was in a back room when Francisco Pinal began firing, neighbors said. She was unharmed physically but was emotionally distraught from losing her own sister in the man’s shooting spree. The sister was taken to a local hospital, where she later died.

Ricardo Gonzalez lost not just his aunt Lydia but also his grandmother Rosa Alaniz in the horror that unfolded in the small home tucked away from the main road.

Haunted by her abusive husband, Lydia Pinal was afraid to be out and about on her own, and Rosa Alaniz had accompanied her to the client’s house to provide support, the family said.

Ricardo Gonzalez said his family knew Lydia Pinal’s husband was bad news. The grieving nephew recalled Francisco Pinal beating her when Ricardo Gonzalez was growing up. The family begged her to get out of the relationship, but Lydia Pinal stayed with her husband, to whom she was married for more than 20 years.

“It was because of him that our whole family split,” Ricardo Gonzalez said. “It tore us apart.”

He tried to help his mother, Ruth Gonzalez, as she collapsed over her sister and found out her own mother, Rosa Alaniz, had also been shot to death. Tears welled in his eyes as paramedics loaded his mom into an ambulance after she was apparently overcome by the weight of her loss.

“She was just so shocked,” he said of his mother. “She couldn’t take it. My tía (aunt) was her only sister, and to see her like this, it broke her heart.”

No witnesses to the shooting had come forward as of late Tuesday, according to investigators.

Rio Grande City Police Chief Dutch Piper said they may never be able to piece together exactly how events played out.

The multiple slaying is one of the worst homicide cases he has worked, he said, and marks the second fatal shooting his department has investigated this year.

“I can’t say I’ve seen that many (bodies) at one time” in a homicide case, Piper said. “Three at one time — that’s three too many.”

Starr County Justice of the Peace Ramon De La Cruz pronounced each of the four individuals dead. Autopsies are pending.

Piper said he suspects the shooter used a .40-caliber, semi-automatic handgun.

Lydia Pinal’s family was familiar with the sight of Francisco Pinal’s pistol.

The man would often pull out the weapon and threaten family members with it, said Ricardo Gonzalez, who recalled looking down the barrel of it once during a confrontation with his aunt’s husband.

“He never had the guts to shoot it,” Ricardo Gonzalez said. “I guess he was heartbroken, and that can drive people to do crazy things.”

Lydia Pinal’s friends and family suspect Francisco Pinal was upset because his wife began to distance herself from him.

But no matter what she did, she couldn’t escape her husband — he was obsessed with her, Norma Garcia said.

Garcia, 41, lives next door to where the three women were gunned down. She said Lydia Pinal would talk to her while she was tending the yard. Lydia Pinal often complained about her husband and recently informed Garcia she was divorcing him.

“I never wanted to get involved,” Garcia said. “I just felt bad for her. She was hurting so bad and she was scared of him.”

Garcia was picking up her children from school when the shots rang out. As she pulled into her driveway, she spotted the bodies strewn across the lawn next door.

“I saw them laying there and I started screaming,” she said. “I was surprised, shocked. I couldn’t stop screaming.”

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Lindsay Machak covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4462.