SAN ANTONIO– The dead bodies that Texas investigators believe were a pregnant woman and her boyfriend were found with gunshot wounds days after they were reported missing, police said Wednesday.
A medical examiner has yet to confirm that the bodies were Savanah Nicole Soto, 18, and Matthew Guerra, 22, which police found Tuesday in a car parked outside a San Antonio apartment complex. But the fact that they were shot offers the first indication of what may have happened at a crime scene that the city's police chief described as “very, very baffling.”
Authorities have so far provided limited details about the case, which is being investigated as a murder with capital potential. In a statement from San Antonio police Wednesday, the victims were listed as an 18-year-old woman, a 22-year-old man and an unborn child.
Soto was a week overdue for delivery and was scheduled to undergo an induced labor at a hospital last Saturday evening, her family told KENS-TV. But her mother said she received no answer Saturday afternoon when she knocked on Soto's apartment in the suburb of Leon Valley.
The family spent Christmas night searching the area. On Monday, Leon Valley police issued a missing persons alert for Soto and later said Guerra also could not be found.
San Antonio Police Chief William P. McManus said the bodies found Tuesday were in a Kia Optima that matched the description of one belonging to Guerra. He said investigators believe they are the missing couple, but they can't say for sure without confirmation from the medical examiner.
“What we're looking at now is a very, very baffling crime scene,” McManus said Tuesday evening, without elaborating. He said he did not know if a gun was found in the car, and police did not immediately respond to this and other questions by email Wednesday.
Guerra and Soto were not among the deaths listed in the Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office's online death records database as of Wednesday afternoon.