SAN ANTONIO – Bexar County Sheriff’s Office investigators say a man shot and killed his wife Tuesday morning while their six-month-old son was in the home.
They say the baby was sleeping in another room of the apartment and was not harmed.
According to Deputy Johnny Garcia, a sheriff’s spokesman, the man himself called 911 from a convenience store in the 5900 block of Woodlake Parkway around 8 a.m. He told dispatchers that he had shot his wife in self-defense.
“The male walked into the Valero, placed the weapon on the counter, and made the phone call,” Garcia said.
Gina Ramos was working at the taco shop inside that store. She said she noticed him after he handed the gun to a store clerk.
“He put the gun over there,” she said, pointing to the checkout counter. “I asked (the clerk) what happened, and he said he got the gun.”
Ramos says she was startled by the man, who was pacing back and forth in and out of the store.
Later, she noticed deputies arrive and take him into custody.
Meanwhile, other deputies had made their way to the couple’s home at the Woodlake Villas, where they found the woman and baby inside an apartment.
“They found the door ajar, and (the woman) was lying, facedown, injured, shot multiple times,” Garcia said.
The woman was rushed to a hospital, where she died.
Garcia said the baby was turned over to relatives.
Homicide investigators spent several hours going through the apartment, looking for evidence.
It was not clear right away whether the man would face charges.
The shooting, Garcia said, shares some similarities with another shooting that happened about a month ago.
In that May 29 case, another man told deputies he accidentally shot and killed his wife.
After searching their home on Gunsight Pass, investigators moved forward with having the husband charged with murder.
The investigation into Tuesday’s shooting is still underway.
“We’ll definitely be learning what happened in the moments up to this shooting,” Garcia said.
Although Garcia said there has been no noticeable increase in deadly domestic violence, it remains an ongoing problem.
“We constantly harp to the community for victims of domestic violence to get out of that situation,” he said.
Garcia mentioned that sheriff’s deputies had been called to the home several times in the past, but he was not able to say right away what the nature of those calls was.
KSAT has a long list of domestic violence resources available on this website.