Hold Suspect In Texas Mass Murder.

 


El Paso Times
El Paso, Texas •
Fri, Nov 21, 1969
Page 9

SONORA. Tex. (AP) Authorities brought a man back from California Thursday hoping he can help solve the mass murder of five members of a Mexican family. The murders occurred 18 months ago on a lonely stretch of highway between Sonora and Del Rio in West Texas.

LAST TOO SEE.
Sheriff and a state intelligence officer returned David Lordon from San Francisco.

He was identified as a “material” witness, possibly the last man to see the family before the five met their killer. Sheriff Tom Henderson of Rocksprings. Edwards County, said. We have ruled him (Lordon) out as a suspect.” He said they wished him to see a man in Johnson City. However, Johnson City authorities indicated they were holding no one.

The state intelligence officer, who declined use of his name, said, “This man may hold the key.” Five members of the Arellano family were murdered and another. Manuel Arellano Jr., who was four at the time, ” suffered multiple stab and gunshot wounds but survived. The boy described to police the vicious murder. The family was from Villa de Fuente, Mexico, a town near Piedras Negras, just across the border from Eagle Pass, Tex. They were apparently on their way to San Angelo when their car had a – flat.

The boy told officers his father, Manuel Arellano Sr., 25, struggled with a man who gave them a ride and was shot to death. Their attacker then killed Mrs. Arellano, 24; two children, Eduardo Arellano, 18 months, and Leticia Arellando 22 years; and Rosa Elia Santos Arellano, 21, sister of the elder Arellano.

HAD FLAT TIRE
Leticia was found alive along with Manuel Jr., but she died shortly after. Cowboys from the White,-head Ranch about 58 miles north of Del Rio found the bodies off the highway as far as 70 yards in one case. ‘ Police said the younger, woman was nude and had been raped. The Arellano car, a 1958 Buick registered in Texas, was found about eight miles south of the bodies. The car had a flat tire. Lordon was employed by a filling station in the area at the time of the slaying April 19, 1968.