Autopsy reveals how ex-officer killed 17-year-old girlfriend in Tri-Cities
A 17-year-old was stabbed to death inside a West Richland home as part of Elias Huizar’s rampage, according to an autopsy.
Angelica Santos was wounded multiple times, but it’s unknown how long she was inside the home before her body was discovered, Benton County Coroner Bill Leach told the Tri-City Herald.
It’s still unclear whether Santos was killed before or after Huizar, 39, took a gun to William Wiley Elementary School about 3:20 p.m. Monday.
He approached his ex-wife, Amber Rodriguez and opened fire, according to court documents. After she fell to the ground, he shot several more times.
The Benton County Coroner’s Office wrapped up the autopsy for both women on Friday.
When police searched Huizar’s home on the 2500 block of South Highlands Boulevard after the shooting, they found Santos dead.
Investigators have not released any other information about her death.
By the time Santos’ body was discovered, Huizar already had taken their 1-year-old son and fled.
Questions remain about the relationship between Santos and Huizar. They first met when she was 12 and he was a school resource officer at Washington Middle School, according to an investigation by the Washington State Attorney General’s Office.
While she told friends that she had a relationship with the officer, she never came forward to school officials or investigators about it.
Huizar, at the time, denied that he had a relationship with her.
Santos told investigators earlier this year during a separate rape investigation that she and Huizar were in a relationship when she was 15 and that lead to the birth of their son.
It’s unclear if she was recently still living at the South Highlands Boulevard home with Huizar. A judge had previously ordered Huizar to stay away from the girl and his ex-wife Amber Rodriguez.
Rodriguez asked last Friday for a custody hearing aimed at keeping him away from the two children they shared.
Before the murders, he was charged with second-degree rape for attacking a 16-year-old girl, and then for third-degree child rape after prosecutors learned that Santos was underage when she became pregnant.
“There was some pending criminal charges and there was some domestic matters that were pending in court, but specifically we don’t know what the motive is at this time,” Eisinger said during a news conference this week.
Washington-Oregon manhunt
Huizar fled after shooting Rodriguez and took Santos’ 1-year-old son with him. That triggered a manhunt that stretched across Washington and into Oregon.
The Oregon State Police were staking out Interstate 5 near Eugene when they spotted the car Huizar was driving about 2:45 p.m. Tuesday. A short chase ensued.
At one point, Huizar lost control of the silver Toyota Corolla and exchanged gunfire before he drove off again, according to OSP Capt. Kyle Kennedy at a Tuesday news conference in Eugene.
Farther south on Interstate 5, Huizar crashed into a semi-truck and trailer that had stopped for a crash on the highway and Huizar spun into the median.
As state police approached, Huizar shot himself. He died at the scene. The baby was uninjured.
