{"id":265748,"date":"2026-04-25T10:01:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/265748\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T10:01:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T10:01:31","slug":"jury-convicts-san-antonio-man-who-threatened-to-kill-missions-park-ranger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/265748\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury convicts San Antonio man who threatened to kill Missions park ranger"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A San Antonio man has been convicted of threatening to kill a park ranger at the San Antonio Missions National Historic Park.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A federal jury found Sergio\u00a0Renato Tapia guilty\u00a0on a charge\u00a0of threatening to murder a federal officer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Testimony established that Tapia often spent time at the Missions and the park rangers there knew him and could recognize his voice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">READ ALSO: <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/news\/article\/hayam-el-gamal-family-texas-release-ordered-22222441.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Texas judge orders release of family held at Dilley for 10 months;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Texas judge orders release of family held at Dilley for 10 months<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He was arrested July 26,2023, after a threatening voicemail message was left on a visitors center phone.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Jurors heard the profanity-laced voicemail message in which the caller identified himself as Tapia, referenced an employee at Mission\u00a0Concepcion and said, &#8220;I just want to say his days are numbered.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Kirk Mangels told the jury before the call was played in court that Tapia identified himself multiple times throughout the message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;I&#8217;m gonna (expletive) murder him, he&#8217;s (expletive) dead. I&#8217;m gonna shoot him in the (expletive) head, OK?&#8221; the caller said. &#8220;He&#8217;s a fat, he&#8217;s a bald (expletive) son of a (expletive), OK? I&#8217;m gonna (expletive) kill him.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">READ ALSO: <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/news\/article\/ten-commandments-texas-schools-appeals-court-22218805.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Texas can enforce Ten Commandments school law, appeals court rules;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Texas can enforce Ten Commandments school law, appeals court rules<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">At the end of the call, the man said, &#8220;&#8230;Watch,&#8221; followed by a noise that sounded like a gun being cocked and fired without ammunition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Mangels told the jury there is no dispute the voicemail is real, and he said the person being threatened was Chief Ranger Alex\u00a0Heyer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Heyer told the jury that\u00a0Tapia has a history of interactions with law enforcement officers at the park, and said one of the rangers\u00a0checked the messages at San Jose Visitor Center&#8217;s front desk phone and recognized Tapia&#8217;s voice, as did others who worked there.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Tapias attorney Gene May told the panel that\u00a0Tapia has a history of mental health issues and was going through a psychotic episode when he made the call. He urged the jury to consider that he was not himself at that moment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">U.S. District Judge Jason Pulliam, who presided over the trial, is scheduled to sentence Tapia on July 29.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">This article originally published at <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/news\/article\/sergio-tapia-voicemail-threat-missions-ranger-22224254.php?utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=yahoo_syndication\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Jury convicts San Antonio man who threatened to kill Missions park ranger;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Jury convicts San Antonio man who threatened to kill Missions park ranger<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A San Antonio man has been convicted of threatening to kill a park ranger at the San Antonio&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[7653,45637,16440,99384,82,84,5423,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-265748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-antonio","9":"tag-federal-jury","10":"tag-park-ranger","11":"tag-renato-tapia","12":"tag-san-antonio","13":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","14":"tag-san-antonio-missions","15":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265748","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=265748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}