{"id":482879,"date":"2026-11-01T03:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T03:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/482879\/"},"modified":"2026-11-01T03:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T03:16:08","slug":"arrest-made-in-2019-murder-of-san-antonio-woman-bexar-county-sheriffs-office-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/482879\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrest made in 2019 murder of San Antonio woman, Bexar County Sheriff\u2019s Office says"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The Bexar County Sheriff\u2019s Office arrested a 24-year-old man Thursday evening in connection with the 2019 death of Megan Gonzalez<\/a>, whose burned body was found in a field in southwest Bexar County.<\/p>\n

Joey Emiliano Tovar-Vargas is being booked on a charge of tampering with evidence and on an unrelated human smuggling warrant out of another county, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Meagan Gonzales (KSAT 12)<\/p>\n

Tovar-Vargas has not been charged with the murder itself, but has been charged with disposing of her body.<\/p>\n

Gonzalez, 20, was last seen alive around Nov. 11, 2019, with Tovar Vargas in her vehicle, according to the sheriff\u2019s office. She was reported missing to San Antonio police on Nov. 15, 2019.<\/p>\n

Her truck was found Dec. 2, 2019, in the 5300 block of Northwest Loop 410. Investigators found blood in the truck bed that was later linked by DNA to Gonzalez, officials said.<\/p>\n

The next day, her body was found in the 12000 block of Wisdom Road in southwest Bexar County<\/a>. It was burned and badly decomposed and was wrapped in a blanket with a distinctive pattern, officials said.<\/p>\n

Tovar Vargas was suspected early on, Salazar said, but investigators said there was little evidence tying him to the case, and the investigation eventually went cold after leads were exhausted.<\/p>\n

This year, the sheriff\u2019s office cold case team applied technology that was not available in 2019 to evidence already in hand \u2014 chiefly Tovar Vargas\u2019 cellphone. Officials described the phone as a \u201ctreasure trove\u201d of information.<\/p>\n

Investigators said phone records place him near where Gonzalez\u2019s belongings were found dumped in a neighborhood and near the apartment complex where her truck was found. They said the phone also contained searches about how long fingerprints last and how to delete social media accounts.<\/p>\n

Investigators said witnesses saw him dumping items in the days after Gonzalez disappeared and before her body was found, and that they believe he asked a witness for help moving a body. Photos on his phone also showed the distinctively patterned blanket inside his home before her death, officials said.<\/p>\n

The case remains under investigation. The sheriff\u2019s office asked anyone with information to call 210-335-6000.<\/p>\n

This story is developing and may be updated as we learn more.<\/p>\n

Read our previous reporting<\/a> on this case:<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 The Bexar County Sheriff\u2019s Office arrested a 24-year-old man Thursday evening in connection with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1680,4755,698,2539,294,162583,636,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-482879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-arrest","tag-bcso","tag-bexar-county","tag-cold-case","tag-crime","tag-meagan-gonzales","tag-murder","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482879","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=482879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}