Write a new simple attractive title based on the title from ‘A cold, cold killer’: No bond for man accused of murdering four near San Benito and dont use quote marks

OLMITO — A man accused of killing four people over the weekend was given no bond during an arraignment Monday afternoon.

Christian Joel Maldonado Pacheco, 25, stood before state District Court Judge Janet Leal at the Cameron County Carrizales-Rucker Detention Center and received no bond for the four counts of capital murder and three counts of abandoning and endangering a child.

During the arraignment, Pacheco, who is a Honduran native, initially declined hiring his own attorney or a court appointed attorney. However, Leal decided to assign an attorney to represent Pacheco given the nature of the charges.

“What I’m going to do on the capital murder (charges) is I’m going to put a no bond,” Leal said. “To be real honest, I’m going to put no bond on the other ones as well, because realistically, what I have to look at is the safety of our community, and I have to look at whether or not he’s a flight risk because of the fact that he could take off back to Honduras.”

Following the arraignment, Cameron County Sheriff Manuel Treviño and the San Benito Police Department held a news conference at the Cameron County Sheriff’s Office to share details about the murders.

Treviño announced that he would not be releasing the names or any photographs of the victims at the request of the victims’ family members, but did share their ages and genders.

According to the sheriff, a 9-1-1 call was made at approximately 3 a.m. Sunday morning from Pacheco, who told the dispatcher that he had killed a couple of people and that he needed help.

Deputies went to the 3200 block of Road 819 outside of San Benito, where they found Pacheco outside the home, and he was taken into custody without incident.

“Immediately, the deputies entered the house to see if they could render aid to any of the victims that were in there, but unfortunately, the three victims that were inside the house were already deceased,” Treviño said.

“Pacheco was then transported to the office here to be interviewed, where he provided a full confession not only of killing these three individuals at the residence, but also that he had committed another killing earlier that night and had dumped the body in the outskirts of San Benito.”

The victim was identified as a 50-year-old male. The three victims inside the home were identified as a 29-year-old man, a 28-year-old woman, and a 67-year-old woman who Pacheco referred to as “mom.”

Pacheco is not believed to be related to the victims, but reportedly lived with them for four years.

All four victims were Mexican nationals, and were all found with multiple gunshot wounds. A 9-mm Glock believed to be the weapon used in the murders was recovered outside of the residence.

Three children, ages 9, 5, and 2 months, were also found inside the residence. They were identified as the children of the 29-year-old man and the 28-year-old woman who were killed inside the home. Treviño said that the children were unharmed, but were present inside the home during the murders.

San Benito Police Chief Mario Perea said that his department received a call at 2:40 a.m. Sunday morning after motorists saw an individual lying on the road on Russell Lane near Stirrup Circle in San Benito.

He said that responding officers found the body of the male victim with injuries consistent with gunshot wounds.

“They immediately secured the scene and began working the investigation,” Perea said. “They were able to obtain surveillance video from neighboring residents and noticed a vehicle at the scene. We utilized our flock system. We were able to find the vehicle. We were able to find the registered owner, which belonged to the deceased victim.

“At that time, we found his address. He resided outside our jurisdiction. So we called the sheriff’s office, and that’s when we discovered that they were working a homicide investigation. So we were able to link those two.”

Treviño said that Pacheco gave a motive to investigators, but the sheriff said that he is struggling to make sense of what the suspect said.

“The individual himself gave a motive, but again, this is only his side because we can’t get the other side because they’re deceased,” Treviño said. “His motive was that he was tired of being bullied. There is nothing to corroborate that statement. Let’s clarify that there is nothing. This is only his opinion that he did it because he was tired of being bullied.”

It is not yet known what relationship Pacheco had to the victims other than having lived with them for four years.

Treviño said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement determined that Pacheco is in the country illegally and placed a detainer on him.

“To me, this was just a senseless act by (someone) who, in my opinion, I consider a cold person,” Treviño said. “You know, because when you live with these people for four years, and one of them — you identify them as ‘mom,’ but yet you also killed her. So no, I wouldn’t say this is a norm. To me, it’s a person who had no remorse and was a cold, cold killer.”