A young Texas father who beat to death with his fists a man molesting his 5-year-old daughter
will not be charged, authorities said Tuesday as they released a dramatic 911 tape of the dad frantically pleading for help before the hired ranch helper died.
A Lavaca County grand jury Tuesday declined to indict the 23-year-old father in the death of Jesus Mora Flores, 47. Prosecutors said the grand jury reached same conclusion as police after reviewing the evidence: The father was authorized to use deadly force to protect his daughter.
Flores was killed June 9 on a family ranch so remote that the father is heard profanely screaming at a dispatcher who couldn’t locate the property.
“Come on! This guy is going to die on me!” the father yells. “I don’t know what to do!”
[...]
The tense, nearly five-minute 911 call begins with the father saying that he “beat up” a man found raping his daughter. The father grows increasingly frazzled, cursing and crying into the phone so loudly at times that the call often becomes inaudible.
At one point tells the dispatcher he’s going to put the man in his truck and drive him to a hospital before sheriff’s deputies finally arrive.
“He’s going to die!” the father screams. “He’s going to (expletive) die!”
V’Anne Huser, the father’s attorney, sternly told reporters several times during a news conference at the Lavaca County courthouse that neither the father nor the family will ever give interviews.
“He’s a peaceable soul,” Huser said. “He had no intention to kill anybody that day.”
[...]
On Tuesday, a new “No Trespassing” sign was freshly tacked onto a gate barring entrance down a gravelly, shrub-canopied path leading to the barn and chicken coop on the ranch. Authorities say the attack happened near the barn.
Across the street, neighbor Michael James Veit, 48, described the father as easygoing and polite — down to always first asking permission to search his property for animals that had wandered off the ranch, even though the families have long known each other.
“They won’t find a jury pool here that will convict him,” Veit said.
[...]
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