Teens shared friendship before shooting, family members say

PHARR — The crime scene landed on their doorstep Monday night, but local police had to delve into the community on Tuesday to outline the events that led to 17-year-old Roy Garza’s shooting death.

At PSJA High School, students said Garza and the teen who police believe was his killer were each affiliated with rival gangs.

But back in the Las Milpas neighborhood where both boys lived, neighbors and family insisted that Monday’s shooting was a case of a friendship turned fatal.

Just before 8 p.m. Monday, Pharr police received a frantic 9-1-1 call from a group of teenagers who had said that they had been shot at while driving in the 200 block of East Dicker Drive in Las Milpas. By the time they arrived at the police station, Garza had died from a bullet wound to the right side of his head.

The teens identified their shooter as 18-year-old Ulysses Sanchez, a classmate and former friend. Officers arrested him later that evening.

But as Sanchez appeared in court Tuesday, his lawyer maintained his client was innocent. The fresh-faced teen energetically bounded into the courtroom despite his handcuffs and leg chains.

With his attorney, Ricardo Perez, hovering close by, Sanchez said nothing as a municipal court judge outlined the charges he faced — one count of first-degree murder and four counts of criminal attempted murder — and set a total bond of $2 million.

When asked whether his client was a gang member, Perez said he did not know.

"We can’t really comment on the charges filed," Perez said after the hearing. "But we plan to enter a ‘not guilty’ plea."

Members of Sanchez’s family, who watched Tuesday’s court proceedings with teary eyes, refused to comment. Pharr investigators also remained tight-lipped, releasing few details of their ongoing investigation.

But the probable cause affidavit in Sanchez’s case outlined much of the teens’ harrowing night.

According to the document, the teens were driving from Garza’s house in the 7300 block of South St. Marie Drive along Dicker Drive when they spotted Sanchez emerging from his home on the 200 block of East Dicker Road. Sanchez allegedly approached the group’s silver Hyundai Accent, took a semi-automatic handgun from his waistband and began firing at the passenger side of the car, the document says.

Inside the car, Garza, 16-year-old Denise Alvarado and 15-year-old Jose Luis Garcia Jr., were hit. The car’s driver, Samuel Mendez, and another passenger, Marcos Jacquez, were not injured.

As they made their way less than two miles to the Pharr police station, Garza died. Emergency responders took Alvarado, who had been shot in the lower back, to McAllen Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries. And they treated Garcia at the scene, the document says.

Based on the teens’ statements, officers arrested Sanchez at the white-brick home on Dicker Drive where he lived with his parents. Seven spent casings littered the street outside, the affidavit says. Police later found a weapon matching the teens’ description hidden behind the home.

But Garza’s family remained unaware of much of the information in the affidavit late Tuesday afternoon. In fact, they said, Pharr police never notified them of the 17-year-old’s death.

"We had to hear about it from friends that were calling us," said his 25-year-old sister, Aracelia Garza. cq "We still don’t know much."

She later said the family had received money for funeral expenses from a victim’s advocacy fund associated with the police department.

Madalyn Yarrito, 15, grew up with Roy Garza and remained his close friend, but she said she didn’t hear of his death until arriving at PSJA High School Tuesday morning.

"I just heard about it from the other kids," she said. "I just had to leave after that."

She spent the rest of the day at the Garza family home, consoling his mother, Nilda, and talking with friends and well-wishers who stopped by.

Sanchez and Roy Garza had once been friends, but at some point they had a fall-out, she said. She didn’t know when or what they had argued about.

But she insisted that her friend was not a gang member. Rather, he was a social teen with plans for the future.

"He was a senior this year," Aracelia Garza said. "He was planning on going to college."

And although she still appeared shaken from Monday night’s events, Nilda Garza said her family will find peace.

"I’m sad, but I’m content," she said. "I know he’s in a better place."

A memorial service for Roy Garza is set for today at Memorial Funeral Home in San Juan.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.