(Dallas) A man in his 20s fatally shot his wife in Texas, allegedly because he was unhappy that she had an abortion.
The suspect was charged with murder and taken into custody.
Texas banned abortions for women who have been pregnant for about six weeks in September 2021.
However, almost all abortion clinics have paused since the shutdown Roe v. wadewhich protected the constitutional right to abortion in the United States, was struck down by the country’s Supreme Court last summer.
Since then, only medical emergencies warrant an abortion being performed in Texas.
On Wednesday, Gabriella Gonzalez, 26, was in a parking lot in Dallas with her boyfriend, Harold Thompson, 22.
According to an affidavit prepared to obtain an arrest warrant, the suspect first attempted to strangle his partner, who had just returned from Colorado the night before.
Surveillance videos obtained by the police show the young woman who “pushes away” her boyfriend, then the two continue to walk.
That’s when the suspect pulled out his gun and shot the young woman in the head. The latter fell to the ground, then the man fired several more bullets at her body before fleeing.
Harold Thompson was finally arrested later Wednesday and has since been held in a Dallas jail without bond. The court documents relating the events did not contain the name of a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
Gabriella Gonzalez’s sister was at the scene and could hear the bangs, police said. Another witness also saw Harold Thompson trying to strangle his girlfriend, but she couldn’t call the police because she didn’t have her cell phone.
Before shooting his girlfriend, Harold Thompson had previously been charged with assaulting a family member, who alleged the man strangled her in March.
The affidavit relating this event does not clearly identify Gabriella Gonzalez as the alleged victim. However, it says that the complainant told police that Harold Thompson “beat her continuously throughout their relationship”, and that the man told police that his girlfriend was pregnant.
The young woman “repeated that she was afraid of the suspect because he had threatened to harm her family and her children”, according to the affidavit.