SAN ANTONIO – Deputies searching for a missing 30-year-old man in Bexar County instead found a body wrapped in plastic inside a home, prompting what the sheriff said is likely to become a homicide investigation.
Around 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, deputies responded to an address near the corner of Fort Leonard and Yturria Ranch, inside the Weston Oaks neighborhood.
Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said deputies were dispatched “about 4 o’clock this afternoon” for a report of a missing person. When a deputy arrived, he was met by two young women — one who lives in the home and another who lives elsewhere — who reported that a 30-year-old man who lives at the house was missing.
Salazar said the initial information given to the deputy was that the man had experienced what was described as a “night terror” and then left the residence, or they believed he left at some point.
As deputies began taking information for a missing-person report, Salazar said they conducted a cursory sweep of the home and the deputy began finding evidence of blood inside. With the homeowner and another woman present, the deputy continued searching and eventually looked into a closet in one of the bedrooms, where he found a body.
“At this point, it’s too early to tell if the body that was found is that indeed of the 30-year-old man that was that they were attempting to report missing,” Salazar said, adding it was also too early to determine definitively whether it is a homicide. Still, he said the circumstances are “highly suspicious.”
Salazar said the body “was wrapped in plastic,” and investigators believe it is unlikely someone would harm themselves and then wrap themselves in plastic “as tightly as what we’ve found here.” He said investigators are waiting for the medical examiner to respond and determine the cause and manner of death, but “we’re operating under the presence that it’s most likely going to be a homicide case.”
Salazar said there is evidence of trauma and evidence that someone tried to clean up what investigators are treating as a crime scene. “I suffice it to say, it was more most likely a violent violent attack on this on whomever this this decedent is,” he said.
Three people — “two females and a male” — were detained and were expected to be questioned about any involvement, Salazar said.
Investigators also planned to execute a search warrant at the home where the body was found, as well as at another home in the area later in the evening. Salazar said two of the detained people live at the second residence, and investigators believe evidence related to what happened at the first home may be located there.
Salazar said the timeline provided to deputies was that the man was last seen “late last night, early into the morning hours,” when he was supposedly suffering from night terrors. He said there did not appear to be advanced decomposition, and “the time frame certainly seems to match up.”
Salazar described the missing man as a 30-year-old white male “from out of state,” but said that was all he could provide at the time. He said the person investigators believe the body may be was a tenant at the home, and the woman who lives there was described as a friend.
The other two detained people, he said, live at another residence but are also friends with the pair at the first home.