4 dead in shooting possibly tied to child custody dispute, police say; 2 accused of murder

The fatal shooting of four people early Sunday at an apartment complex in northwest Dallas may have been started by a child custody dispute, according to police.

Relatives of the victims found them dead shortly after 7 p.m. Sunday at the Arlo Apartment Homes complex in the 3500 block of Villaverde Avenue near Forest and Marsh lanes, Dallas police said. An infant also was in the apartment but wasn’t harmed.

Family members told police that Artemio Maldonado, 18, and Azucena Sanchez, 20, might have killed the group, according to court records. One of the victims had dated Sanchez, and the two were in a custody dispute over their son, the relatives said.

Security video showed a black Ford Mustang, similar to one Maldonado was known to drive, leaving the apartment complex shortly after 1 a.m. Sunday. A neighbor told police he thought he had heard gunshots, but did not report them, according to the affidavit.

A few hours after the victims were found, police said they found Maldonado’s Mustang on Northhaven Road, about 2.5 miles from the crime scene. Maldonado and Sanchez were taken into custody.

Both admitted to the killings, according to their arrest-warrant affidavits. Sanchez told police they broke in through a bedroom window. She said she believed that nobody was home and that they were there to rob the apartment, court records show.

Inside the apartment, the victims confronted Maldonado and Sanchez. Maldonado admitted to shooting all of them, according to court records.

Maldonado and Sanchez each face capital murder charges. It’s not clear whether either has an attorney.

It was a particularly violent weekend across the city: An 11-year-old boy died after he and his mother were shot Saturday by her alleged ex-boyfriend in North Dallas; a 47-year-old man was killed Saturday in South Dallas and another child was wounded Saturday in central Oak Cliff. No one has been arrested in the latter two incidents.

Sunday’s shooting marked the third mass shooting — typically defined as four or more people killed or wounded in one location — in as many months in Dallas, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks incidents of gun violence across the U.S.

On Jan. 6, three people were killed and two wounded when a group was shot in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Far North Dallas. And one person was killed and three injured — including a 6-year-old child — in a Jan. 30 shooting in southeast Oak Cliff.