December 18th, 2009
Kyle gunman dies of self-inflicted wound

by JEN BIUNDO

A Kyle man who allegedly shot his wife in the legs Saturday then turned his gun on himself died Thursday night at Brackenridge Hospital in Austin.

Kyle Police identified the shooter as Amador Gutierrez, 44. His wife, Hortencia Gutierrez, 56, already has been released from the hospital.

The shooting occurred around 11:30 a.m. Saturday morning in the 500 block of Zebra Drive in the Trails subdivision just east of IH-35.

The caller told the 911 dispatcher that his mother had been shot and that his stepfather then shot himself. Officers responding to the scene found the son and another male standing outside, the husband lying in a pool of blood on the first floor and his wife on the stairs with gunshot wounds to her legs.

The witnesses told officers that after an argument between the couple, Amador Gutierrez left the house armed with a 9 mm pistol, then turned back towards the house and fired a shot through the front door, striking his wife in the legs. He then went back inside the house and shot himself in the head, police say.

Both individuals were transported to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin, where Amador Gutierrez clung to life to five days.

Kyle officials said they did not find any police records indicating a history of domestic violence between the couple.

Law enforcement officials from the Kyle Police Department and Hays County Sheriff’s Office respond to domestic violence calls in the Kyle area almost daily. But it’s relatively rare for those calls to escalate to use of a deadly weapon.

Domestic violence led to Kyle’s only homicide in recent memory. In 2004, Kyle resident Terri Lynn Foster, 40, was stabbed to death by her husband, Jasper Earl Foster. He was sentenced to 80 years in prison for the murder.

This April another Kyle woman, 42-year-old Cecilia Ann Ledesma, was allegedly stabbed to death and run over in a San Antonio parking lot by her jealous ex-husband, Elpidio Alcorta Ledesma.

County-wide, there have been at least eight domestic violence related homicides since 2002.

Planning is underway for the Hays County Family Justice Center, an ambitious program that will provide multiple services under one roof to victims of domestic violence.

Jen Biundo is managing editor of the Hays Free Press where this story was originally published. It was reprinted here through a news partnership with The San Marcos Mercury.