“Update: Suspect in Cleveland, Texas shooting that left five dead arrested after days-long manhunt”

(CNN) –– After an intense search that spanned several days, Francisco Oropesa, the man accused of perpetrating a shooting in Cleveland, Texas, is finally in custody, San Jacinto County Sheriff Greg Capers announced Tuesday night.

Earlier, two law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation had confirmed the arrest to CNN. The arrest occurred in the city of Cut and Shoot, Texas, according to a federal law enforcement source. Cut and Shoot is approximately 17 miles west of Cleveland, where the massacre occurred.

Oropesa, whom the authorities had been looking for since last Friday after he fatally shot five people – including a mother and her 9-year-old son – was found “when he was hiding in a closet, under his clothes,” he explained. Capers.

The suspect was transferred to jail “without incident” and will be held on $5 million bond, the sheriff’s office said.

Francisco Oropesa, 38, is accused of perpetrating a massacre against his neighbors last Friday, which left five people dead, including a mother and her 9-year-old son. According to authorities, Oropesa opened fire after neighbors asked her to stop firing his rifle so close to his house.

Initially, investigators began tracking Oropesa using his cell phone, but said the lead vanished late Saturday and they had no information on his whereabouts since.

The lead that led to Oropesa’s location came through the FBI tip line, Deputy Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul said at a news conference.

“We just want to thank the person who had the courage and the bravery to call to locate the suspect,” he added.

According to Paul, the notice came at 5:15 p.m. local time, and Oropesa was arrested at 6:30 p.m.

Agents monitored Francisco Oropesa’s wife to a home near Cut and Shoot, Texas, that was associated with one of his family members, a law enforcement source told CNN.

Police are now investigating whether the suspect was helped to run from the law for days, according to the local prosecutor. “We’re looking into whether he had any help,” San Jacinto County District Attorney Todd Dillon told CNN via text message Tuesday night.

A search that lasted for days

For days, authorities urged the public to come forward with any information and devoted substantial resources to tracking down the suspect. Among them, more than 250 agents and a US$80,000 reward for tips leading to his arrest. Billboards in Spanish featuring the reward were also posted throughout the city of Cleveland, according to police. For its part, the US government communicated the information to the media throughout Mexico in case Oropesa was there, the police source told CNN on Monday.

Although his current immigration status is unknown, Oropesa entered the United States illegally and has been deported by immigration officials at least four times since 2009, an ICE source said. An immigration judge first ordered him removed from the country in March 2009 before he was deported again in September 2009, January 2012 and July 2016, the source said.

It is not known how long Oropesa has been in the United States since his last deportation, according to the source.

The victims, all of Honduran nationality, have been identified as Sonia Argentina Guzmán, 25, and her son Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzmán, 9; Diana Velazquez Alvarado, 21; Julisa Molina Rivera, 31, and José Jonathan Cásarez, 18.

This is how the massacre unfolded

About 15 people, including friends and godparents who had come to help prepare for a religious event, were gathered last Friday at the home in Cleveland, a city of about 8,000 northeast of Houston, said Wilson Garcia, whose wife and son were killed.

Between 10 and 20 minutes before the massacre, Wilson García and two other men had approached Oropesa’s patio to ask her to stop firing her rifle so close to her house because her baby was sleeping, García told CNN. Oropesa had been asked to shoot across his property, he said.

The suspect refused and Garcia said he would call the police.

“We went in and my wife was talking to the police, and we called five times because he was getting more and more threatening,” Garcia recalled.

“We saw him, he was coming off his property and he cocked his gun,” the father said. “I told my wife to go inside because she had cocked the gun and she could come to threaten us. So my wife said: ‘You come in, I don’t think he’ll shoot me because I’m a woman, I’ll stay here at the door.'” .

Shortly thereafter, the shooter arrived at Garcia’s home and shot his wife, Sonia Argentina Guzman, at the door, before killing three other adults and Garcia’s son, Daniel Enrique Laso-Guzman, the grieving father said.

Sonia Argentina Guzmán and her son, Daniel Enrique Laso Guzmán, were shot to death by a neighbor on April 28 in Cleveland, Texas, local officials said. (Credit: Family Photo)

“One of the people who died saw my wife fall to the ground,” Garcia told CNN.

“She told me to escape through the window because my children had already run out of mom. So one of us had to survive to take care of them. She was the person who helped me jump out the window,” she added.

The woman who helped Garcia flee did not survive, he said.

“Two of the people who died were protecting my two-and-a-half-year-old daughter and my one-month-old son,” Garcia said between sobs. “They protected him with a lot of clothing so the attacker wouldn’t kill him too. So imagine what we’re feeling right now. It was horrible”.

When police arrived, they found the victims had been shot “almost execution style” at close range above the neck, Sheriff Greg Capers told local media.

Before the deadly confrontation at Garcia’s home, five 911 calls had been made to report that the gunman fired his rifle outdoors, the father said.

Authorities rushed to the scene as quickly as they could, Capers said. But his small force covers a large county, he said, and the house is about 15 minutes outside of town.

“I feel like a part of me has gone with her”

As the families of the victims mourn, Argentina Guzmán’s loved ones struggled to put their pain into words.

The pain felt by his brother, Germán Guzmán, is “inexplicable,” he told CNN, adding: “It’s hard to know that the people who are very close to you are gone, very difficult.”

“I feel like a part of me has gone with her. I feel like a part of my heart is broken,” said her mother, Francia Guzmán.

“With God’s permission, he will return in a coffin so that he can say goodbye to me even if he never answers me, even if he can no longer tell me anything,” said the mother.

Honduran officials are preparing to repatriate the remains of the victims, they said.

“The Government of Honduras deeply regrets the loss of these valuable lives and accompanies all their loved ones in their pain. We demand that the pertinent authorities arrest the perpetrator of this terrible act and apply the full weight of the law,” the Honduran Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“All I want is for them to be returned to me so that they can rest where they were born, so that they can rest forever and be in a place where at least I can bring them a flower,” said Francia Guzmán.

CNN’s Rosa Flores, Ashley Killough, Holly Yan, Jamiel Lynch, Roxanne Garcia, Claudia Dominguez and Raja Razek contributed to this report.