Police: Couple shot woman, 18, then left her for dead in north Fort Worth

A man and woman are in custody, accused of shooting an 18-year-old woman in the head in a motel room, then leaving her for dead on the side of a road in north Fort Worth.

Investigators believe that Hernaldo David Gonzalez, 30, and Joan Ashley Garcia, 31, shot Hope DeHart shortly after 5 a.m. Monday in a room of the Quality Suites at 5825 Quebec St., where the victim and Garcia had been staying with others.

The suspects are then believed to have taken the injured woman in a 2001 Cadillac to a dead-end road, dumping her near the QuikTrip parking lot in the 3100 block of Golden Triangle Boulevard, just east of Interstate 35W.

“I believe that the suspects believed that the victim was deceased at the time that they dumped her on the side of the road,” homicide Sgt. Joe Loughman said Wednesday. “I don’t think that the suspects would have dumped her if they knew she was alive.”

Truckers discovered DeHart shortly after 7 a.m. Monday. She remained in critical condition Wednesday in a Fort Worth hospital.

Loughman credited all detectives in the homicide unit with linking what he described as a “minimal amount of evidence” where DeHart was dumped to the location where she is believed to have been shot.

“In doing so, they were able to locate the crime scene prior to it being tampered with by anyone other than the suspects,” Loughman said. “Had it not been for good old-fashioned detective work, the scene would have been shortly cleaned by the motel staff.”

Gonzalez was arrested Tuesday as he reported to a scheduled meeting at his parole officer’s office on North Beach Street. Garcia was arrested Wednesday as she left a room at the Mustang Inn at 5330 Blue Mound Road in north Fort Worth.

Garcia was being booked into jail Wednesday afternoon.

Loughman said the victim and two suspects are all acquaintances but declined to comment Wednesday on the suspected motive for the shooting.

He said police seized the Cadillac believed to have been used at the residence of one of Gonzalez’s relatives.

Gonzalez remained in the Mansfield Jail with bail set at $150,000 in the case. He is also being held without bail on a parole violation warrant, jail records show.

Tarrant County court records show that Gonzalez has several convictions for marijuana possession.

He was sentenced in 2010 to seven years in prison in Parker County after pleading guilty to two charges of burglary of a habitation, records show. He was released from prison on mandatory supervision in September 2014, according to a Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman.

This story was originally published August 5, 2015 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Police: Couple shot woman, 18, then left her for dead in north Fort Worth."