A young girl aged 11 was found dead under the bed only hours after she messaged her father and warned him that a stranger was knocking at their door.
Carmelo Gonzales, 32, told Fox 26 that he was at work when he received a text from his daughter Maria saying that someone was outside their home in Pasadena, Texas.
“I told her, ‘Don’t open the door because I am arriving at work,’ and she responded, ‘I am in my bed,’” he said.
The worried father then called some relatives living in the same building to check on his daughter but they did not see her.
Gonzales returned home around 3 pm and was left devastated after finding his daughter’s lifeless body in a laundry basket under the bed.
During a press conference, Pasadena Police Chief Josh Bruegger said that the father had asked the uncle and aunt ‘to go check on (Maria) because he hadn’t heard from her.”
The relatives reportedly arrived and found the door open but “were unable to locate her” after doing a “cursory check.”
Gonzales told the news outlet: “They left her under the bed in a plastic bag. They left my poor daughter.”
Maria had just celebrated her 11th birthday and she was described as a ‘good, quiet girl.’
Bruegger said that police currently do not have any suspects for the ‘violent, violent crime’ but said many people had volunteered their DNA to rule themselves out.
“At this point, the father’s alibi checks out, so he is – at this point, at least – not a suspect,” he added.
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