A Texas man was arrested last week for a road rage shooting that killed a mother of four early last month.
San Antonio police responded to a rollover crash on Interestate 35 at about 9:30 p.m. on November 8 and found 31-year-old Julie Marie Butcher inside the vehicle with a gunshot wound to the head, KSAT reports. She was pronounced dead on the scene.
A witness reported seeing the driver of a small blue and silver sedan shoot at Butcher’s vehicle, and surveillance video caught a glimpse of the suspect vehicle as it fled the scene after the shooting.
Later, an anonymous tip said a man named “Nick Hernandez” had confessed he was the shooter to a close friend and said he was driving a Volkswagen Jetta on November 10. Police identified him as 24-year-old Nicholas Hernandez and learned that he’d reported a robbery about 15 hours after the shooting.
Hernandez told police that he was robbed while playing basketball by a man who took his Beretta 9mm handgun, a black duffle bag, and a basketball. But when police executed a search warrant at Hernandez’s home, they found the duffle bag and basketball he’d reported stolen.
By mid-month, police had contacted three witnesses for statements. According to an arrest affidavit, one told investigators he’d been playing basketball with Hernandez and other at the time the robbery supposedly took place, but he gave a different location for the basketball game. He also said that Hernandez never mentioned anything about a robbery.
Another said that Hernandez confessed to being involved in a road rage incident that included a shooting and the victim’s vehicle to roll into a ditch.
The final witness said that Hernandez came to his home and asked him to dispose of two spent 9mm shell casing that he took out of his Jetta, which was later seized by police.
The affidavit also said that Hernandez’s phone records and records showed his phone near the location of the shooting on November 8, and records from the Jetta showed it at the last witness’s home after the shooting.
Hernandez was arrested on Wednesday and charged with murder. No bond has been set.
Butcher was a mother of four children and general manager at a Papa John’s location, an obituary said.
