Pasadena police are on the hunt for a murderer after a Texas father found the lifeless body of his 11-year-old daughter under a bed in the family home.
Maria Gonzalez Xitumul was found strangled and sexually assaulted on August 12, according to USA Today.
Xitumul lived with her father in an apartment on Main Street in Pasadena, a suburb of Houston. Police Chief Josh Brugger described the neighborhood as a “fairly close-knit community” and a “relatively quiet complex.”
The father, 32-year-old Carmelo Gonzalez, reportedly left the apartment at around 9:45 a.m. Saturday to go to work. Shortly after 10 a.m., Xitumul texted that a stranger was knocking on the door. Gonzalez said he told his daughter not to answer the door, and she said she was in bed. That was the last time Gonzalez heard from his daughter.
Gonzalez asked family members who lived nearby to go to the apartment and check on his daughter, but they were unable to locate her. Gonzalez came home from work and began looking for the girl, and eventually found her body wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a laundry basket underneath his bed, Fox 26 reported.
The medical examiner said Xitumul had been raped and died from strangulation and blunt trauma to the head and neck.
At a news conference with reporters, Brugger described the circumstances of the case as “brutal” and “very violent.”
Brugger said that Gonzalez is not a suspect in the case, but so far, police do not have any leads on a potential suspect. Brugger remarked in the news briefing that the murder could have been targeted, as it seems suspicious that the attack apparently happened shortly after the girl was left alone in the apartment.
Police are asking the community to come forward with any information they may have about the crime. Crime Stoppers is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect in the case.
“We’re doing our level best to get out and solve this crime,” Chief Brugger told reporters. “As a parent of an almost-10-year-old myself, it certainly is a cause for concern.”
Further north, in Dallas, there have been 159 homicides so far this year, according to police data updated on August 19.
Meanwhile, as Dallas police work to fight crime, they are hindered by a lack of staff. An analysis completed in 2015 determined that a city the size of Dallas needs roughly 4,000 police officers, but DPD currently only employs around 3,100.
The shortage has been especially felt in Downtown Dallas, which routinely logs considerably more criminal incidents than Fort Worth’s downtown area. The latter is patrolled by a dedicated police unit that works alongside private security guards.