Fredericksburg, TX — A Texas couple are recovering after a home invasion early Saturday morning left an intruder dead and the homeowner in the hospital.
On April 11th, around 12:45 in the morning, homeowner Curtis Roys was awoken by loud noise. It sounded like somebody was banging on the outside of his house in the 15000 block of Ranch Road 965.
Roys, 73, went to investigate. That’s when police say he saw an intruder on his back patio forcing his way into the house. Roys confronted the young man, but was overpowered. The intruder began beating him on the head with a blunt object.
Meanwhile, Roys’s fiance, 65-year-old Melody Lumpkin, was pleading for the intruder to stop hurting him. The intruder, later identified as Cleto Neri Solorzano, paid no attention to her begging.
Melody Lumpkin knew that once Roys was unconscious, there was nothing to stop this guy from killing her…or worse. She ran back to their bedroom and got a handgun.
Meanwhile, Roys didn’t go down from the beating, so the intruder placed him in a choke hold until he passed out.
When she came out, she saw Roys still on the ground. She fired a warning shot. Still, the man kept assaulting her unconscious fiance.
She shot one more time, this time hitting Cleto Solorzano in the head. He collapsed, and she ran to Roys. As he regained consciousness, they called the police.
When they arrived with the Fredericksburg Fire and EMS, they transported Solorzano to the Hill Country Memorial Hospital. He was later pronounced dead.
The investigation is still under way, but no charges are expected against the couple. Further, police suspect that the suspect was under the influence of drugs at the time of the attack.
You Never Know When It Will Be The Worst Day Of Your Life
Nobody can predict when things like this will happen. We can only know that some people do evil things for a variety of reasons. And knowing that, we can prepare mentally and physically for that kind of an event. That’s what gives gun owners a leg up on both the criminal and those who wrongly assume that as long as they’re nice, others will be nice to them.
Given the drugs affecting his thinking, the odds are really good that Solorzano would have beaten Roys to death, if not both of them. Thank God that this was in Texas, so the couple was able to keep guns in their home!
