On July 8, 2022, a 41-year-old woman was arrested in Angleton, Texas, outside of a parole office.
Shelley Susan Thompson-Lemoine, who lives in the Texas town of Freeport in Brazoria County, is accused of killing an elderly couple in Cleveland in 2005.
Nearly 20 years after Antonio Rodriguez and his wife, Luz Rodriguez, were brutally killed, the police have made some connections. The couple in their 70s was found dead in their own house. Back then, no one was put in jail.
At the Rodriguez home, police found DNA on a carpet and bloody fingerprints on the side of a denture case. Police thought it could help them find a possible suspect. But for several years, nothing else changed.
In 2021, when Shelley Thompson Lemoine was arrested on drug charges, the cold case was brought back to life. The unidentified DNA found at the murder scene in Cleveland was put into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). It matched the DNA of Lemoine, who was in prison in Gatesville at the time.
To get a DNA sample from Lemoine, the Cleveland Police Department and Texas Ranger Brandon Bess went to Gatesville, Texas. Shelley Thompson Lemoine was arrested after it was confirmed that the two people were the same.
“Sometimes small pieces of evidence can help solve a case. In this case, a spot of blood on a piece of carpet found inside the house was enough to figure out who did it.”
After Shelley Thompson Lemoine was caught, her family in Texas got some answers.
Antonio Rodriguez was a veteran of World War II. He and his wife, Luz Rodriguez, lived a quiet life in Cleveland, and everyone in the small town loved them. In 2005, when they were brutally killed, the whole town was shocked. After 17 years, they think they are almost done with the case.
Shelley Thompson Lemoine is a name that Carolina Tejeda, the daughter of the old couple, has never heard of. She thinks that more than one person was to blame for the deaths of her parents. The police have not yet found out why the Rodriguez couple was killed. Tejeda said:
On July 5, 2022, a warrant was put out for Lemoine’s arrest. She was charged with a crime that could lead to death, and a judge set her bond at $1 million. The Liberty County jail is holding her.
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