ATASCOSA COUNTY, Texas — A 21-year-old Jourdanton resident has been charged with killing two people Monday morning in Atascosa County.
Samuel Ponce is locked up at the Atascosa County jail, charged with murdering 23-year-old Jorge Erosa in Jourdanton and 18-year-old Ross Cruz Jr. in Pleasanton.
Police say the first murder happened on Elm Street in Jourdanton just before 2 a.m. Monday. First responders found Erosa with gunshot wounds. He was taken to a San Antonio hospital and pronounce dead.
Residential surveillance video assisted law enforcement in their investigation to find Ponce.
Officers in Pleasanton received multiple calls for shots fired in the 100 block of N Mansfield about 25 minutes later. Police arrived at the location within just a few minutes of the call and found multiple residents outside of their homes claiming they had heard the gunshots.
Police found Cruz on the ground in front of a home at the location, unresponsive and with multiple gunshot wounds.
Detectives and the Texas Rangers were called to the scene to investigate.
Detectives in Pleasanton began to coordinate with Jourdanton Police Department Officers to try and figure out if both scenes were connected in some way. They later confirmed that the two were, in fact, related.
Jourdanton Police Chief Eric Kaiser said that physical evidence at each scene combined with the timeline strongly suggest the same perpetrator for both shootings.
"The locations are probably about ten minutes apart or so. I mean, if you drove straight from one to the other." Kaiser said. "The cities actually bump up against each other. So geographically, we're right next to each other. So the timeline is pretty much what it should be if you were going to commit one murder and then go commit a second one."
Jourdanton Police and Pleasanton Police worked closely together, along with help from the Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Department of Public Safety Ranger Division.
Investigators from both agencies gathered evidence, including the gun suspected of being used in the crime, and video evidence that shows both murders were committed by the same suspect.
Investigators from both agencies along with the Texas Rangers identified Ponce as a person of interest to the two murders. Surveillance was conducted on Ponce and when he drove into the city of Pleasanton on the afternoon of August 21, he was stopped by Pleasanton Police on a traffic stop. During the traffic stop cocaine and a firearm were found in his vehicle. Ponce was booked into the Atascosa County Jail on Weapons and Possession Charges.
The motive for these murders remains under investigation.
“It was probably a drug nexus there but I can’t confirm that a hundred percent yet but that’s where things are pointed toward," Kaiser said.
Ponce's bond for both murders has been set at $2 million.
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