‘Zero leads’: Dragnet continues for man sought in fatal shooting of 5 in Texas

CLEVELAND, Texas — As a man who lost his wife and son in a shooting rampage in Texas wept so loudly that his sobs were audible over a choir singing “Amazing Grace” at a vigil Sunday evening, the suspect remained at large.

The suspect, Francisco Oropesa, who is accused of killing five people, had been shooting his gun in his yard in Cleveland on Friday evening when his neighbor Wilson Garcia approached him and asked him to stop so that his baby could sleep.

Instead, authorities said, Oropesa, 38, retrieved an AR-15 rifle from his house and walked over to Garcia’s home, where he killed his 8-year-old son, wife and three other people.

“I have no words to describe what happened,” Garcia said in Spanish at the vigil, where dozens of people surrounded him and the other survivors of the shooting, joining them in prayer. “We are alive but there is no life,” he said. “I was able to escape by a miracle.”

Earlier on Sunday, law enforcement officials conceded that they did not know the suspect’s whereabouts, adding that they considered him to be a threat.

“We do not know where he is,” James Smith, the special agent in charge of the FBI in the Houston area, told reporters at a news conference. “We do not have any tips right now as to where he may be. Right now, we have zero leads.”

Authorities said that more than 200 officers, including state troopers, were looking for Oropesa. They have offered an $80,000 reward for information leading to his capture.

Sheriff Greg Capers of San Jacinto County said that there were 10 people inside the house at the time of the shooting. He said that Oropesa had been drinking when Garcia asked him to stop firing his gun. Capers said that Oropesa responded, “I’ll do what I want to in my front yard.”

Capers said authorities believed that they had recovered the AR-15 used in the shooting.

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