SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio police arrested a man Sunday, moments before he was due to board a bus headed to Mexico City, according to an arrest affidavit.
Francisco Javier Garcia Ventura was taken into custody at a bus station in the 7900 block of Interstate 35 Access Road on suspicion of tampering with evidence in connection with his girlfriend, a mother of two children, who has not been seen since Friday. San Antonio police did not identify the woman in the arrest affidavit.
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His family called police after taking Garcia Ventura to the bus stop, according to the affidavit. Family members told police that Garcia Ventura “confessed to them of beating his girlfriend to the point that she stopped breathing” before taking her body to San Marcos. Garcia Ventura then asked them for a ride to the bus.
Police secured a search warrant for his apartment and found blood spatter on the bedroom wall and on “a security camera that was affixed to a kitchen wall that has been ripped off,” according to the affidavit.
Investigators then examined the apartment with a chemical designed to “reveal blood stains that have been washed out, wiped off, or are invisible to the naked eye,” according to the affidavit. That test confirmed “a heavy presence of human blood” throughout the apartment.
Officers were also able to review CCTV surveillance, which showed Garcia Ventura leaving the apartment near the time of his girlfriend’s disappearance with a heavy-duty garbage bag, according to the affidavit.
Garcia Ventura did not cooperate with investigators when he was taken into custody and asked for an attorney.
The missing woman has yet to be located. Her mother called police on Saturday, asking them to check on her daughter, who was not responding to calls and did not pick up her two children, according to the affidavit. Officers did not find the woman at the apartment, but did find her vehicle.
Court records showed Garcia Ventura’s bond was set at $200,000. He remained in jail Tuesday as police continue investigating the case.