SAN ANTONIO– A Texas police chief says investigators hope surveillance video will lead to answers in the killings of an 18-year-old pregnant woman who disappeared before Christmas and her boyfriend, both of whom were shot in the head in a car and may have been dead for days.
Police had not named a possible motive or suspects Friday as family and friends mourned the deaths of Savanah Nicole Soto, 18, and Matthew Guerra, 22. Soto's family has said she was late to deliver her baby and that an introduction was planned. gave birth when she went missing last week.
The Bexar County Medical Examiner's Office ruled both deaths homicides caused by gunshot wounds to the head.
The couple was found Tuesday in Guerra's car outside a San Antonio apartment complex, a crime scene that San Antonio Police Chief William McManus originally described as “very, very baffling.”
On Thursday, police asked the public for help identifying two people seen in surveillance video showing the car that was recorded before the bodies were found.
McManus would not say whether investigators believe the couple was dead when the video was taken.
“Detectives are hopeful that surveillance footage will lead to the events that led to their deaths,” McManus said.
The video shows Guerra's car pulling up briefly next to a pickup truck in a spot close to where the couple was found, McManus said. A person gets out of the truck and approaches the driver's side of the car. Another person is seen briefly getting out of Guerra's car, but McManus said they do not believe that person was one of the victims.
He has described the case as a murder investigation, calling it “a heinous act.”
Soto was scheduled to undergo an induced labor at a hospital last Saturday evening, her family told KENS-TV. But her mother said she got no answer earlier that day 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.
At a vigil in San Antonio Thursday, Savanah's grandmother, Rachel Soto, described Savanah as a “funny girl” and said she loved everyone and loved life. She said her granddaughter was looking forward to becoming a mother for the first time, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
“I just pray to God that she takes her baby and that she has peace,” Rachel Soto said.