Gonzalo Lopez, a convicted murderer who escaped from a Texas prison bus last month and killed a family of five, including three children, in the Houston area, was shot dead by police on Thursday night.
On the run since May 12, Lopez, who was serving a life sentence for a 2006 homicide, managed to escape from the transport after stabbing the driver and running off into the woods in Leon County, a sparsely populated area between Dallas and Houston.
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Authorities subsequently put out a $50,000 reward for any information leading to Lopez’s capture.
On Thursday, he was named as the prime suspect of the quintuple homicide in Centerville, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
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During a presser on Thursday evening, Texas authorities confirmed the same, naming Lopez as the main suspect, and putting an alert out for the white Chevrolet Silverado that the 46-year-old convict had stolen from the home of those he murdered.
It is unclear when the murders took place or when the police got wind of it, but authorities declined to release the identities of the victims on Thursday night.
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Regardless, authorities managed to track Lopez through the Chevy Silverado, which was identified by Atascosa County police at 10.30pm local time and disabled with spike strips in Jourdanton, a small town 40 miles south of the city of San Antonio.
After authorities found Lopez’s vehicle, a gunfight ensued.
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“He fired several rounds at officers and was armed with an AR-15 and a pistol,” Jason Clark of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said, commenting on the firefight.
Despite Lopez having considerable firepower, police managed to fatally shoot the convict. No officers were injured, authorities added.
