(Trends Wide Español) — A 17-year-old who had been arrested and charged in the shooting death of a teenage girl in a Houston, Texas neighborhood last week has been released on bail, according to jail and court records verified by Trends Wide.
Frank Deleon Jr. had been arrested on Monday and charged with the murder of 16-year-old Diamond Álvarez, the Houston Police reported in a statement on Tuesday.
According to this statement, the investigators determined that the defendant was in a double romantic relationship with the victim and with another woman, and that when Álvarez found out about the situation, he decided to meet with Deleon in a park, where he would have shot him several times.
Detectives “worked closely with the community to find witnesses and leads” until Deleon was arrested, the statement added.
According to court records consulted by Trends Wide, the young man’s defense managed to pay US $ 250,000 bail to get him out of jail.
A request for information in this regard sent by Trends Wide this Wednesday to his lawyer has not yet been answered.
Diamond’s mother, Anna Machado, told Trends Wide in a telephone interview Wednesday that she knew Deleon, but that her daughter was no longer romantically involved with him when she was killed.
“He is not known to the family, he was my daughter’s boyfriend, he was,” said Machado, who added that Deleon’s arrest did not bring them peace, and that in fact now they are worse off than before because the young man was released.
The mother criticized the fact that the defendant was granted bail: “Now he has already been given his second chance. And my daughter… when will she receive her second ‘chance’?”
Diamond had left her house to walk her dog — something she usually did — and minutes later a family member who was present at the home heard multiple shots. Soon after, the animal returned home alone and the family began to suspect that something bad had happened. When they left, they found the teenager lying on the ground with several bullet wounds, Machado told Trends Wide last week.
