Yaquelin Arias Rivas, a 30-year-old female of Salvadoran descent, was found dead on September 22, 2025, inside her apartment at the Shadow Ridge complex on Old Walters Road in north Harris County, part of the Houston area. Deputies were alerted shortly before 2:30 p.m., when a friend or coworker—concerned that she had not arrived at work—went to check on her and discovered three people deceased inside the home.
Responding investigators identified the other victims as Yaquelin’s 19-year-old sister, Saidia Machado, and Yaquelin’s estranged ex-boyfriend, 40-year-old Sebastian Rodriguez. Two young children who lived in the apartment with Yaquelin were at school at the time and were unharmed.
Detectives with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office determined the case to be an apparent double murder–suicide rooted in intimate partner violence. Preliminary findings indicate Rodriguez shot Yaquelin and Saidia before turning the gun on himself. Authorities described a scene in which the victims were found on the floor inside the apartment; forensic and witness timelines center on Yaquelin’s missed shift and the welfare check that followed. Community reporting and family accounts later emphasized the domestic nature of the violence that ended the sisters’ lives.
In the days that followed, relatives and community members organized support and discussed repatriating the sisters’ remains to El Salvador, underscoring their roots and the shock felt across Houston’s Salvadoran community. Memorial pages and local coverage recorded Yaquelin’s death as part of the broader toll of gun violence, noting her role as a mother and the sudden rupture left in her family.
No arrests were made. Investigators identified Sebastian Rodriguez as the sole suspect, and he died at the scene of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
