Pedro Mena Triana, a 77-year-old Hispanic/Latino male born in the town of Camajuani in Cuba and later a long-time resident of Texarkana, Arkansas, built a life that blended hard work, sport, and family. As a younger man he had played minor league baseball in both his homeland and the United States, a passion that hinted at natural athletic talent and determination.
In later years he worked for Over The Top Roofing in nearby Redwater, Texas, spending his off-hours fishing, tinkering with cars, and surrounding himself with a wide circle of relatives and friends. His obituary describes a man rooted in family: several children, grandchildren, and a great-granddaughter, along with a sister still living in Cuba, all left to carry his memory after his death. Memorial services were held in mid-February 2024 at Chandler Funeral Home in De Queen, Arkansas, followed by burial at Sand Hill Cemetery, formal rituals that tried to give structure to a loss that came suddenly and violently.
On the morning of February 12, 2024, the quiet of the 800 block of Ash Street in Texarkana was broken when police were called to Pedro's home around 10 a.m. Officers from the Texarkana Arkansas Police Department found him dead inside the residence under circumstances they immediately regarded as suspicious. In the days that followed, local reports would make clear that he had been shot and killed inside his own house, his death quickly treated as a homicide rather than any kind of natural or accidental passing. The address, the time of the call, and the rapid involvement of detectives all underline how abruptly an ordinary Monday morning turned into a crime scene, with patrol cars and investigators converging on the modest home where Pedro had lived out his later years.
Detectives moved swiftly in the immediate aftermath. Within a few days, investigators had identified a primary suspect. On the evening of February 16, 2024, officers went to Smith Keys Apartments in Texarkana, Arkansas, to serve an arrest warrant on DaCorey Moss. According to police statements summarized in local news coverage, Moss was taken into custody around 7:30 p.m. and arrested in connection with Pedro's killing. Reports describe him as the suspect in the shooting death at the Ash Street home, and subsequent coverage notes that he remained in custody, facing a murder charge tied to the February 12 homicide. For Pedro's family and neighbors, the quick arrest offered the first sign that the investigation was moving toward accountability, even as the broader questions of motive and what exactly happened inside the house that morning remained unanswered.
Yet the case did not end with a single arrest. Behind the scenes, detectives continued to comb through the evidence gathered from the Ash Street residence. Crucial DNA samples recovered at the scene were sent to the Arkansas State Crime Lab and entered into the Combined DNA Index System, a process that would take more than a year to bear fruit. In April 2025, investigators received notice of a DNA match linking the evidence from Pedro's home to 18-year-old Jayden Arnold. Within two days of that notification, on April 16, 2025, police located Arnold and arrested him in connection with the same February 2024 homicide. Texarkana authorities publicly credited advances in forensic science and the persistence of detectives for the breakthrough, emphasizing that the case had remained active even after the initial arrest of Moss.
By the time news of Arnold's arrest became public, the picture that had emerged was of a killing that continued to echo through Texarkana's courts and community long after the crime scene tape came down. Pedro's death is recorded on national gun-violence tracking sites as one more life lost to a firearm in a small Arkansas city, but local coverage paints a more intimate portrait: a man who loved to fish, fix cars, and talk with friends; a father and grandfather whose memorial service drew family from across states and borders. With both Moss and Arnold under arrest and the investigation formally still open to new information, police have continued to call for anyone who knows more about what happened in the Ash Street house to come forward, as Pedro's family seeks full justice for a life that began in a Cuban town, crossed ballfields and rooftops, and ended in violence behind the front door of his Texarkana home.
