‘We’ve been praying for this,’ family says after arrest in 2008 Fort Worth murder
On an October 2008 weekend, Michael Moncivais and his family had plans for a birthday celebration for his older brother, Robert Ocanas.
The family was scheduled to meet for a party.
Moncivais never made it.
On the morning of Oct. 25, 2008, according to his family, there was an altercation, someone fired a shot and the bullet struck the 22-year-old Moncivais while he was at his Fort Worth home.
By the time paramedics arrived, Moncivais was dead from a high-velocity gunshot wound to his chest in his home in the 2600 block of Hale Avenue.
No one was arrested that day, and it was that way for 12 years.
“I had always wondered,” said Robert Ocanas of Keller in a recent interview with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I’d make call after call to police, and it was always the same, ‘No leads.’”
That is until last month, when 32-year-old Ismael Durand of Fort Worth was arrested and booked into the Fort Worth Jail and accused of killing Moncivais.
Durand was in the Tarrant County Jail on Monday with bond set at $100,000, and he was charged with the murder last week, according to Tarrant County criminal court records.
Fort Worth police have not released any information on the case or the arrest.
Less than two months after Moncivais was shot to death, Durand, who is from Monclova, Coahuila in Mexico, committed a robbery on Dec. 17, 2008, in Fort Worth, according to Tarrant County criminal court records.
Then on Jan. 2, 2009, Durand assaulted a Fort Worth police officer.
For those two crimes, Durand was sentenced to five years in prison in May 2010, and started his sentence on June 15, 2010, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice records. He was discharged on Nov. 15, 2014, and transferred to the custody of agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Information on how and when he returned to Tarrant County was not available.
Family members of Moncivais said they remained in “shock” over the arrest, saying Fort Worth police had not updated them on the case.
“We’ve been praying for this,” said Sonia Figueroa of Fort Worth, Moncivais’ aunt, in a recent interview with the Star-Telegram, referring to the arrest. “We are reliving what happened that day.”
Figueroa and Moncivais’ brother had never heard of Durand.
Born in Colorado, Moncivais and his family moved to Fort Worth in the 1990s, living in the city’s Northside and Michael attended Northside High School.
Robert Ocanas said his brother was a hard worker, taking jobs at places such as Eckerd’s and Winn Dixie.
Moncivais even became an assistant store manager at an Albertson’s in Fort Worth, family members said.
“He eventually got a place of his own,” his brother said. “I’m a little older so I didn’t hang out with his friends and I didn’t know who they were.”
Then came the fatal shooting in October 2008.
“His life was taken too early,” Figueroa said. “He was lovable and he was loved by this entire family.”
Figueroa said a day hasn’t gone by that the family has not thought of Michael, placing flowers or wreaths on his gravestone on every holiday.
“He’s missed every day,” his aunt said. “They took away someone very special.”
This story was originally published March 17, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
