{"id":102331,"date":"2025-12-28T04:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T04:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/102331\/"},"modified":"2025-12-28T04:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T04:29:10","slug":"harris-county-murder-suspect-accused-of-killing-man-during-argument-burning-body-in-truck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/102331\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris County murder suspect accused of killing man during argument, burning body in truck"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/omu63lpnhx2jxfkq.jpg\" alt=\"Suspect accused of killing man, burning body in truck\" class=\"sr-only\" data-v-4292be72=\"\"\/>    <\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">HOUSTON &#8211; A suspect is accused of shooting and killing a man during an argument and then burning his body in a pickup truck early Christmas morning.<\/p>\n<p>   Suspect identified <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KRIV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">The suspect has been identified as Ernesto Bustamante, 44. Records show he has been charged with murder and tampering with evidence.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">He is accused in the death of 25-year-old\u00a0Juan Francisco Benitez.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KRIV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">What we don&#8217;t know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">His bond has not yet been set.<\/p>\n<p> Man found shot in burning truck <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KRIV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Deputies were called to a vehicle fire in the 1100 block of Fellows Road around 4:10 a.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Once the vehicle was extinguished, the sheriff\u2019s office says the body of a man who had been shot was found in the truck.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KRIV\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">New details:<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">On Saturday, the sheriff\u2019s office announced the arrest and details of what happened.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">According to the sheriff&#8217;s office, Benitez and Ernesto were handing out at Ernesto\u2019s house, when they got into an argument.<\/p>\n<p data-v-6c8e215c=\"\">Ernesto allegedly ended up shooting Benitez. The sheriff\u2019s office says Ernesto then put Benitez\u2019s body in a truck and took it to the wooded area on Fellows Road, where the truck was set on fire.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: The information in this article comes from the Harris County Sheriff&#8217;s Office and court documents.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/us\/tx\/harris-county\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Harris County<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox26houston.com\/tag\/crime-publicsafety\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-6c8e215c=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crime and Public Safety<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HOUSTON &#8211; A suspect is accused of shooting and killing a man during an argument and then burning&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":102332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1046,405,56,58,57,223,216,393],"class_list":{"0":"post-102331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-crime-publicsafety","9":"tag-harris-county","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-headlines","12":"tag-houston-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-us"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}