Dores Campos (Bexar County Sheriff’s Office).
A 69-year-old woman in Texas who admitted to killing her 72-year-old sister in a home where their other sister was also found dead will avoid prison and will instead spend the next decade under supervision at an assisted living facility for the elderly.
Senior District Judge Laura Parker on Wednesday sentenced Dores Campos to 10 years of deferred adjudication — a kind of probation that can allow a defendant to have the criminal case against them dismissed — for the slaying of 64-year-old Patricia Sauceda, court records reviewed by Law&Crime show.
Sauceda was found dead inside her home last year by police along with Campos — who they say admitted to fatally shooting her sister in the chest — as well as the body of their deceased older sibling, 72-year-old Linda Blann, who authorities believe died of natural causes.
Campos on Wednesday appeared in Texas’ 290th District Court where she pleaded no contest to one count of manslaughter in her sister’s death. She had initially been arrested and charged with murder before she reached a deal with prosecutors in which she agreed to plead to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
According to a report from San Antonio ABC affiliate KSAT, prosecutors with the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office said that upon her release, Campos, who recently suffered a stroke, will be placed in an assisted living facility where she will be under constant supervision.
The San Antonio Express-News reported that Campos appeared in court in a wheelchair on Wednesday, where her attorney, Monica E. Guerrero, told Senior District Court Judge Laura Parker that Campos had recently suffered “a couple of strokes.”
“She’s remorseful. She and her sister were best friends, but she believes that her sister is in heaven and no longer suffering,” Guerrero reportedly told the court.
As previously reported, deputies with the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call on Saturday, June 10, 2023, reporting two bodies found inside a home in the 2100 block of East Chaveneaux Road.
The caller was Blann’s daughter, who told the emergency dispatcher that she had been trying to reach her mother on the phone. As the daughter grew more worried, she decided to go to Blann’s home.
Once at the house and asking for her mother, Blann’s daughter reportedly heard Campos — her aunt — respond by yelling, “She’s on the floor.” Blann’s daughter then broke through the glass panel of the front door and let herself in, where she found “Campos sitting on the floor” and her mother and other aunt dead.
Blann’s daughter told the emergency dispatcher she went over and felt both her mother and aunt and believed they had been dead for several days.
Campos allegedly admitted to the sororicide, saying she had shot Sauceda, whose body was found lying on a bed with a single gunshot wound to the chest. Police said that she even told them exactly where to find the .22 caliber revolver used in the shooting, which she had stored inside a plastic bag under the bed. Investigators reportedly found the bag, and inside was the firearm and a single spent shell casing.
Blann’s body showed no signs of trauma or any other signs that would indicate her death resulted from foul play, authorities said. Campos did not face any charges in Blann’s death.
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