Two people are in custody facing capital murder charges after four people were shot and killed at an apartment complex in northwest Dallas Sunday night, police say. Officers said they also discovered a baby inside the apartment, who was unharmed.
According to Dallas Police, officers were called to a shooting at the Arlo apartments on the 3500 block of Villaverde Avenue shortly after 7 p.m. where family members had found four people dead inside an apartment.
"Family members, loved ones had gone [to the apartment] when they hadn't heard from the victims throughout the day and located the victims inside the apartment and that's when we were called," said Kristin Lowman, a spokesperson for the Dallas Police Department.
Neighbors reported hearing gunshots after 1 a.m. Sunday, but Dallas Police said they don't have any records of 911 phone calls.
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"I woke up and went to my mom's room and asked her and she was like that was not banging that was gunshots outside," said Michell Soriano who lives above the apartment where the shooting happened.
She and her mother thought the gunshots were outside from afar, but would later learn it was their neighbors.
"If you hear something, if something is out of the ordinary possibly in your neighborhood you know your neighborhood best, reach out to us, call us. It may end up being nothing, but we would rather get that phone call, make that check and make sure that everything is safe," said Lowman.
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Officers arrived to confirm four victims, two men and two women, who died at the scene. Neighbors say the men were brothers and the two women were their spouses.
According to police, an infant was in the apartment during the shooting but was not hurt. The names of the victims will be released by the medical examiner once all of their families have been notified of their deaths.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit obtained by NBC 5, family members found the victims after checking on the residents when they didn't answer their phones. They gave police the name of a possible suspect in the shooting and identified his vehicle.
A parked vehicle matching that description was found a short time later on the 2700 block of Northhaven Road. When a man and woman approached the vehicle, the officers took them into custody at about 10 p.m. A Glock pistol was found in the vehicle, sitting in plain site, police said. The man and woman were later identified as 18-year-old Artemio Maldonado and 20-year-old Azucena Sanchez.
According to police, during an interview with Sanchez, she admitted her role in the murders and said she and Maldonado went to the apartment looking for money and that they didn't think anyone was home when they entered through a back window.
Once inside, Sanchez said they were confronted by the residents and that Maldonado shot them. They then took a box from a closet that they thought contained money and left the apartment through the front door. The box, according to the affidavit, was empty.
Sanchez, according to the document, is the ex-girlfriend of one of the victims and was involved in a contentious custody dispute over their son. It's not immediately clear if their son is the same child present and unharmed during the shooting and robbery.
Both Maldonado and Sanchez have been booked into the Dallas County Jail on charges of capital murder of multiple persons. Bond amounts have not yet been set and it's not immediately clear whether either has obtained an attorney.
The investigation into the quadruple homicide is ongoing, police said.
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