Ricardo Quinones was charged with murder after shooting his wife, Lindsey Whitman, to death. After the incident happened at Whitman’s Georgetown home, Quinones escaped the death scene, as per police reports.
His arrest affidavit revealed that Quinones admitted to killing his wife by shooting her face. Before firing the gun, the 38-year-old man shackled his wife first with a rope to her own bed. According to police, Whitman, aged 31, was found dead with her hand remaining tied.
Police then surrounded the house and tried to neutralize the situation, but Quinones fired his gun twice and escaped from the crime scene.
Several hours after shooting his estranged wife to her death and escaping, Quinones was arrested near Houston by the police.
Their 13-year-old daughter managed to escape from the house during the incident after finding her way out through a bedroom window. The daughter later told police that her mother and Quinones were in the process of divorce.
Murder’s chronology
Whitman’s daughter explained that she was sleeping with her mother before waking up. She found Quinones flashlighted her with a ski mask covering his face. However, she insisted that she recognized the man was Quinones from his voice before making her way out of the home.
Quinones then pulled Whitman out of bed. He then told her daughter to be quiet. Then, Whitman spoke to her daughter to “listen to your dad” but simultaneously asked her to call the police.
“Listen to your dad.”
Lindsey Whitman, Ricardo Quinones’ wife
The daughter chose to call her uncle first before the police at 2:52 a.m. Quinones heard their daughter was on the phone and then pointed a gun at his daughter’s dog. Then, he threatened his daughter and asked her to call her uncle again to tell him nothing was happening. Right after that, he threw the phone away.
According to the affidavit, Quinones bind her wife up with ropes to the bed. At one moment, Quinones tried to cut the rope, but he accidentally cut her legs and made them bleed. He later discovered a knife inside his pocket and threatened to stab her. Quinones also threatened to shoot her mother’s new boyfriend.
The police arrived at the house at 3 a.m. after answering the emergency call.
During the terrible situation, Whitman told her daughter multiple times to leave her. The daughter said she was afraid to leave her mother alone, but she escaped at 4:16 a.m.
After hearing two gunshots at 4:40 a.m., officers entered the house and found Whitman dead.
“She was lying handcuffed to the bed and had been shot in the face,” the police said.
Successful arrest
When Quinones was running away from the house, an officer fired a shot. But, he still managed to reach for Whitman’s truck and drove away. Police managed to track Quinones’ location from a license plate reader. He was spotted driving toward Houston.
Quinones’ other ex-wife said she received texts from him as he escaped from the police. She received a text from Quinones saying “he did something really bad” and informed the message to New Braunfels police.
Another informant, an acquaintance of Quinones, told Georgetown police that he had sold a SIG Sauer P320 handgun, which was used to kill her wife.
Police later found Quinones at a phone store in Columbus, trying to buy a new phone. He insisted that he had dumped the gun, but police found it in the truck.
Quinones is detained at Williamson County Jail for the time being. Quinones will be charged with murder for five to 99 years imprisonment.