DONNA, Texas, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Sheriff's deputies questioned a suspect Friday about the ambush slayings of four women in a car at a South Texas trailer park.
The 21-year-old man, who has not been charged, was detained late Thursday at a bar in Donna, less than 24 hours after the women were attacked, according to Capt. Roy Quintanilha.
Deputies believe the shooter may have followed the women home after they rejected his advances at another bar in Donna, a small town about 40 miles west of Brownsville near the Mexican border.
Six women, all believed to be in their 20s, were in the car when it was riddled by gunfire early Thursday outside their mobile home. Three of them died in the car, a fourth died at a hospital, and the fifth was in stable condition at an Harlingen hospital. The sixth escaped and hid nearby until daylight when she found police.
Sheriff's officers identified three of the dead Friday, all of them Mexican nationals: Maria De La Luz Balzadua, of Matamoros; Lourdes Yesenia Torres, of Monterrey, and Denise Lares Sanchez, of Vera Cruz.
The fourth victim's identity was withheld because her relatives had not been notified.
Celia Silva, a neighbor of the women, told the McAllen Monitor that she and her husband were awakened by the gunfire before daybreak.
"They shot them all over the body and head," she said.
The red Pontiac Grand Am had at least nine bullet holes in the driver's side. More than 50 shell casings from semiautomatic rifles and pistols were found at the scene, investigators said.
"It looked like they even gave them a mercy shot, shooting them right between the eyes," Silva said.
Quintanilha confirmed that at least one of the women was shot between the eyes.
The suspects were seen fleeing a small, light-colored sport utility vehicle and a similar truck was later recovered in a nearby canal but police would not say if it was the getaway vehicle.
Silva said the women had lived in the mobile home for about two months after coming from Mexico.
