A two-day search for a missing pregnant teen and her boyfriend reached a devastating conclusion on Tuesday after their bodies were found inside a car in San Antonio.
Savanah Nicole Soto, 18, and Matthew Guerra, 22, appear to have been fatally shot. However, the “very, very perplexing crime scene” has not yet been ruled a homicide, as San Antonio Police Chief Bill McManus told the press on December 26, according to CBS News Texas.
The couple was about to welcome a baby, with Soto’s labor scheduled to be induced on December 23 as she was a week past her due date.
Their families last saw both Soto and Guerra on December 22. The missed doctor’s appointment triggered considerable alarm among Soto’s family members, and a CLEAR alert was issued for her on December 25.
As police, family, and friends scoured the city looking for the couple, someone spotted a gray 2013 Kia Optima resembling the one belonging to Guerra parked in an apartment complex in Leon Valley. Soto and Guerra’s bodies were found inside, and police detectives’ preliminary findings suggest that they had been there for several days.
“She was a good girl, she didn’t deserve to go this way, especially with her baby [boy],” Soto’s grandmother, Rachel Soto, said, according to KENS 5. “He was an innocent child, nobody deserved this.”
The deaths of Soto, Guerra, and their unborn child are still under investigation.
San Antonio saw an alarming increase of 67% in homicides this year up to October, with 210 murders logged.
In Dallas, the murder rate also continues to swell amid a considerable staff shortage within the Dallas Police Department. DPD currently fields around 3,000 officers, even though a City analysis found that 4,000 officers would be necessary to patrol Dallas effectively.
As of December 26, 240 homicides had been logged in Dallas, for a year-over-year increase of 13.7%, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard.