Manuel Cristales, 46, of Houston, died on Saturday, April 26, 2008, at Ben Taub General Hospital, seven weeks after he was shot on a street corner in southwest Houston. The Houston Police Department investigated, and his death was ruled a homicide.
According to police, Cristales was standing at the corner of Mullins Drive and Dashwood Drive, in the 6700 block of Mullins, at about 10 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, 2008.
Witnesses heard three or four gunshots and saw a man standing next to Cristales. After the shots were fired, the gunman got into a green, four-door, older-model Honda Accord, from about 1996 to 1998, and drove away.
Cristales was taken to Ben Taub, the county's main trauma hospital, where he remained for the next seven weeks. He never recovered, and he was pronounced dead there on April 26. Police announced his death two days later, on April 28, asking again for the public's help.
Investigators released only a brief description of the shooter: a Hispanic man between 17 and 25 years old. Sgt. G. Gonzales and Officer J. Sosa of the HPD Homicide Division said the motive was unknown. Police did not say whether Cristales knew the man, whether anything was taken from him, or whether the gunman had been with anyone else in the car.
Manuel Cristales's name also appears in a 2018 Washington Post investigation that listed thousands of homicide victims across major American cities whose killings had not led to an arrest. Being on that list means that, a decade after the shooting, the case was still counted among those no one had been arrested for.
The corner of Mullins and Dashwood sits in a dense area of apartment complexes in southwest Houston, home to many working families. At 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, people would have been outside and driving through, and the witnesses who heard the shots and saw the gunman standing beside Cristales may have seen more than has ever been made public.
Houston, the fourth-largest city in the United States, recorded roughly 200 to 300 homicides a year between 2007 and 2017, and its homicide detectives carried heavy caseloads. Hundreds of the city's killings from those years were never solved.
Old Houston cases can still be solved. In November 2025, Houston police charged two men with murder in a May 2016 driveway shooting on McDaniel Street in north Houston that had gone unsolved for more than nine years. The victim's sister said the family had believed the call would never come. Crime Stoppers of Houston accepts tips without asking for names, and a tip that leads to charges may be eligible for a cash reward.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Manuel Cristales could be found in news archives or public records. More than 18 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. The Washington Post's homicide database, which tracked killings in Houston through 2017, lists the case as open with no arrest. Anyone who remembers a green Honda Accord near Mullins and Dashwood in March 2008, or who knows who was driving it, may be able to help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen leaving the area or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can call the Houston Police Department Homicide Division at 713-308-3600, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers of Houston at 713-222-TIPS (713-222-8477).
