The night air over the Rancho Alegre neighborhood on the west side of Alice carried the sound of gunfire just after 11 p.m. on June 2, 2025. Deputies with the Jim Wells County Sheriff’s Office arrived at a home in the 1800 block of Carmen Street and found 20-year-old Izaiah Salinas, a male, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds outside the residence. He was rushed to a local Alice hospital, where he was pronounced dead a short time later, marking a violent end to a life barely begun.
In the days that followed, investigators moved quickly. By June 4, authorities announced the arrests of two men: 18-year-old Diego Kael Diaz-Martinez and 22-year-old Gabriel Rodriguez. According to Sheriff Joseph “Guy” Baker, both were charged with murder and engaging in organized criminal activity, and each was held on a $1,800,000 bond. The case description emphasized that deputies had responded to reports of gunfire, located the 20-year-old man outside the Carmen Street home, and that the investigation had already identified suspects known to law enforcement.
A third arrest followed two days later. On June 6, deputies took 22-year-old Makayla Perez into custody at an apartment complex on Farm-to-Market Road 665 in Alice. She, too, faced charges of murder and engaging in criminal activity. With Perez’s arrest, authorities underscored that the killing of 20-year-old Izaiah Salinas, a male, was being treated as a coordinated act that drew in multiple agencies and continued to develop as evidence was processed. As of those June announcements, the three suspects remained jailed while detectives continued to gather details surrounding the shooting outside the Rancho Alegre home.
