Episode 9: Arnaldo Garza Sr
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I came across this case while researching the murder of Michael Flores on the Rio Cold Case Project site. This one was listed as death by Gunshot as well.
Arnaldo Garza Sr was a native of La Reforma but had lived in Edinberg Texas most of his life. He was a self-employed welder and started A&A Welding. He had 1 son and 5 daughters and was 45 at the time of his death.
There are some weird things about his death and I put together a timeline.
09-06-1988, Arnaldo Garza went missing from his home in Edinburg. His daughter Lina stated that she saw him as he was being taken. He was in a white, two-door Ford pick-up truck sitting in the middle of 2 men. She said they weren’t arguing or anything so she didn’t know anything was going on.
On 9-7-88 the family got a call that he was being held for ransom and $70,000 needed to be delivered to an address in Reynosa, Mexico. The money was delivered to someone there and the family awaited confirmation that it was received and for Arnaldo’s return.
11-17-1988, Arnaldo's remains were discovered in a Sugarcane field near Moore Air Base. His family was able to have him identified by dental records.
An autopsy revealed that he may have died due to blows to the left chest and shoulder area. Which I found in a newspaper clipping and thought was strange since the site I came across this murder on had it listed that he was shot.
The police ruled it wasn't drug-related, but there wasn’t evidence to prove it.
The strangest thing about this whole case was I was able to find a couple of things when googling it since his family is still speaking justice on it. However, when I started looking through Newspaper articles is when I found out about the ransom. Any of the news reports that the family has done since then it’s just not been brought up.
I don’t understand why cause they paid someone $70,000, which even in 1988 is a crazy amount of money. Which in Today’s money that amount equals $502993.30. So for it to have been mentioned in 1 newspaper article then just never be talked about again I don’t understand. I have included the news clippings below to prove I’m not crazy or making this up.
This article was from November 23rd, 1988 of The Monitor.
I sat and stared at the picture just to make sure I wasn’t getting it confused with someone else who had the. same name. However, they are literally wearing the same hat in the picture I found on google and the newspaper article. I have learned while researching these cases that is extremely possible but not that’s the same person. However for it to be the person with the same name around the same time and die in the same manner would be more than just random happenstance. Unless it was a case of mistaken identity or something. I couldn’t find anything retracting it either so I have no clue.
References
I also used articles from The Monitor that I found on the newspaper.com
Stuffed Mushrooms
Ingredients
Whole Mushrooms
Cream Cheese -I used Violin’s Garlic and Herb Cream Cheese.
Salt and Pepper
Oregano
Paprika
Olive Oil
Parmesan Cheese.
Instructions
Wash Your Mushrooms then pull the stems out of the caps.
Place in a baking dish.
Coat with Olive Oil, then season with Salt, Pepper, and Oregano.
Fill the mushroom caps with a spoon full of the Cream Cheese
Add Parmesan cheese to the top and push it down into it a little to kind of contain the filling. Be careful not to break the mushrooms.
Sprinkle Paprika on the top
Bake at 350 for 20 mins.
Once they are done let them cool for about 5-10 mins so the filling can settle.
Enjoy!
