Andrew Farias, 18, male, had just graduated from San Marcos High School when, around 1 a.m. on May 25, 2025, gunfire outside a home on Rocky Road in Uhland, Texas, ended the celebration held in his honor. Officers arrived to find him mortally wounded and he was pronounced dead at the scene as detectives began piecing together what had erupted on the quiet country road.
Witness accounts gathered by investigators describe a tense dispute between girls that flared into a brawl.
A young man stepped in, produced a handgun and, according to witnesses, struck the homeowner with it; when Andrew Farias confronted him, the shooter fired twice before bolting into the night. The abruptness of the violence left stunned classmates and neighbors scrambling for cover while the party dissolved in panic.
Within two days, Uhland police named Chad Lee-Gardner as the suspect and announced he had been arrested in Austin with assistance from the Texas Rangers. He was booked into the Travis County Jail on a murder charge; investigators said he fled before officers arrived, and they later corrected early bulletins that had misidentified the victim's age. The arrest shifted the focus from a frantic manhunt to a methodical case file, as authorities documented witness statements and the sequence that led to the fatal shots.
Grief washed over San Marcos in the days that followed. Hundreds gathered at Toyota Rattler Stadium for a candlelight vigil, coaches and classmates recalling his leadership and heart on the Rattlers football team. An obituary identified him as Andrew Noel Farias and set funeral arrangements through Thomason Funeral Home, as the community tried to honor a life cut short while the criminal case moved forward.
