Editor’s Note: Find the latest coverage of Francisco Oropesa’s arrest here.
A man accused of fatally shooting five people at a neighbor’s home in Texas last week, including a mother and her 9-year-old son, was arrested Tuesday evening after a dayslong manhunt, officials announced.
The suspect, Francisco Oropesa, was found in a house just miles from the home in Cleveland, Texas, where the killings took place, the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said.
Oropesa – who is a Mexican national – was “caught hiding in a closet underneath some laundry,” Sheriff Greg Capers told reporters during a Tuesday night press conference.
“They effectively made the arrest; he is uninjured; and he is currently being taken to my facility in Coldspring,” Capers added.
Though the San Jacinto County Sheriff’s Office said Oropesa was captured in the town of Cut and Shoot, the FBI Houston office tweeted that he was found in the neighboring city of Conroe.
The suspect will be held on five counts of murder with bond set at $5 million, the sheriff said.
Oropesa, 38, is accused of carrying out the massacre Friday night after he was asked to stop shooting his rifle near a neighboring home, officials have said. Investigators had initially started tracking Oropesa using his cellphone but said that trail went cold Saturday evening.
A tip submitted through the FBI’s tip line ultimately led authorities to the suspect’s location, Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jimmy Paul said. Paul said the tip came in at 5:15 p.m. local time and Oropesa was arrested at 6:30 p.m.
“We just want to thank the person who had the courage and bravery to call in the suspect’s location,” he said.
In addition to acting on the tip, law enforcement officials tracked Oropesa’s wife to a home near Cut and Shoot that was associated with one of his family members, a law enforcement source told CNN. It wasn’t immediately clear if that happened before or after the tip to the FBI.
Members of the Texas Department of Public Safety, US Marshals Service and US Customs and Border Patrol’s Border Patrol Tactical Unit, known as BORTAC, entered the home and brought the suspect into custody, an FBI Houston spokesperson said.
Authorities are now investigating whether the suspect had any help in hiding, San Jacinto County District Attorney Todd Dillon told CNN Tuesday night.