A Texas man was arrested last week for the murder of his fiance, apparently because he believed the man was an undocumented immigrant.
Ty Vaughn, 31, reportedly staged the scene to look like a suicide. He called 911 at about 5:30 a.m. on January 14 and said he’d come home to find 27-year-old Luis Banos Norberto dead from a gunshot to the face, KTRK reported.
“My spouse is dead. Help. My life is over,” Vaughn told dispatchers.
But according to court documents, investigators uncovered a different story, based on interviews with neighbors and surveillance video that showed Vaughn arriving at the couple’s apartment just after 4 a.m. Neighbors told police they heard a gunshot shortly after that, and at 4:27 a.m., Vaughn texted his already-dead fiance.
“Babe?” he wrote. “Babe why are you not texting back?”
Then he waited more than an hour before calling 911.
Police arrived on the scene anf found Norberto lying on a bed with a rifle propped against one of his arms. A torn photo of Norberto and Vaughn was lying nearby.
The court documents say Vaughn repeatedly and unprompted mentioned Norberto’s alleged immigration status during interviews, and when they searched his phone, they found a Google search: “Can I kill an illegal human?”
The documents did not clarify Norberto’s immigration status. An obituary said that he was born in Guerrero, Mexico, and much of his family now lives in Baytown, Texas, where the murder took place.
Vaughn is being held on a $500,000 bond and has a court appearance on Monday.
