Monica de la Lopez, a 24-year-old Hispanic woman, was brutally murdered on April 16, 1968, in Sonora, Texas. Her death was part of a horrific mass murder that claimed the lives of five members of the Arellano family. The victims included Juan Manuel Arellano, 25, Monica Lopez Arellano, 24, and Maria Antonia Lopez Cantu, 19. The family was traveling from Mexico to San Angelo, Texas, when their car broke down due to a flat tire near Alta Loma in Edwards County, between Sonora and Del Rio.
The family encountered a large Anglo man dressed in elaborate cowboy clothes, who was later seen with them at a local service station in Sonora. Witnesses described the man as being a little more than 6 feet tall, weighing about 200 pounds, with sandy hair, light eyebrows, and pockmarks or a rash on his neck. The family's car broke down again five miles north of the initial location, and it was there that the gruesome crime took place.
The victims were found along a two-to-three mile stretch of US Highway 277 inside the Edwards County line. Monica de la Lopez and the other victims were shot, stabbed, and beaten. Rosa, another victim, was sexually assaulted. The crime scene was described as a "sadistic bloodbath," with babies stabbed and beaten, a teenage girl stripped naked, raped, and killed, and the parents either bludgeoned, shot, or stabbed to death. The only survivor was the Arellanos' 4-year-old son, Manuel Jr., who had been shot in the back of the head and stabbed.
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