Police: Man kills 3 members of wife's family

August 15, 2009 7:22:40 PM PDT
Four people are dead, including a teenage boy, in what deputies say appears to be a murder-suicide. They say a man killed members of his wife's family, and later killed himself while deputies started closing in. Investigators say it all started Friday night at a home on Tree Orchard near Brannan in west Harris County. Mayra Renteria was reportedly living there with her parents, her brother and her three girls. Deputies aren't sure what prompted her estranged husband to make an appearance.

Family and friends crowded around the home where Harris County deputies say 29-year-old Tomas Carreon gunned down Renteria's family before her very eyes.

"He had to be just out of his mind," said neighbor Victor Aguilar. "I don't know what he would think when he done that. It's totally insane."

Shocked neighbors say Mayra Renteria and her three young daughters had been living peacefully there for some time with her parents and brother. But at around 2;30am Saturday, deputies say she called 911 to report her ex-husband had just shot both her mother and father, Robert Schaerer, 49, and Marina Schaerer, 42. When they arrived, they found her brother, Salvador Renteria, 14, dead as well.

"It sounded like metal, like someone slamming metal on the floor," said 11-year-old neighbor Sophia Al-Sulaim

Al-Sulaim says she heard about nine gunshots from her home several doors down, but didn't realize until later they had killed a family friend.

"He just liked to play sports. He was really athletic," said neighbor Rami Al-Sulaim. "He was a nice kid to everybody. He really wasn't that bad of a guy. It's just a shame what happened."

As dispatchers broadcast a description of Carreon over the radio, investigators say a wrecker driver who was monitoring the calls spotted their suspect walking down Clay Road and flagged down a nearby deputy.

When the deputy tried to detain Carreon, they say he ran behind a daycare center and fired a single shot, killing himself.

We asked a spokesperson for the sheriff's department about the three young girls who neighbors told us also lived there. He said he was unaware of them ad couldn't confirm where they were during this shooting.

We did some research into Tomas Carreon and found he had a history of arrests for assault, theft and even violence on a family member. County records show he also testified as a witness in two capital murder trials involving gang-related drive-by shootings.

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