Capital murder warrant served in Sandy Cervantes homicide investigation

Lubbock homicide detectives believe a woman whose remains were found in April 2020 was abducted 10 months before during a robbery, fatally shot and left in an abandoned home in Hockley County.

In December investigators served 33-year-old Brandon Cruz, who was already in jail on an unrelated July 2019 armed robbery, with a warrant charging him with capital murder in Sandy Cervantes' June 2019 slaying.

Capital murder carries a punishment of the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

Investigators believe Cruz shot and killed Cervantes in the course of robbing her.

Paublo Reyes, 28, who has also been at the jail since July 2019, was served a warrant for aggravated robbery for allegedly robbing Cervantes at gunpoint.

A probable cause affidavit filed with the arrest warrant indicates a ballistics report links Cruz to Cervantes' slaying and shed more light on what homicide investigators believe were the last moments of her life.

Investigators with the Lubbock Metropolitan Special Crimes Unit believe Cervantes' vehicle ran out of fuel on June 20, 2019 near a gas station in the 1500 block of 34th Street. A man who was helping Cervantes told police that night he pulled into the gas station parking lot to help fetch her some gas and was assaulted by two men who tied him up, forced him in the trunk of his vehicle and took his wallet, which contained his girlfriend's credit card.

The man said it took him an hour to escape his trunk and by then, Cervantes, her vehicle and the men who attacked him were gone.

Four days later, Cervantes' Saturn Vue was found engulfed in flames in the 1000 block of Ceasar E. Chavez Drive. The vehicle was largely destroyed by the fire, the warrant states. Two days before, her purse was found in a dumpster in Abernathy.

Meanwhile, Lubbock police identified Cruz, Reyes, and Joseph Sanchez, in connection with two, July 2, 2019 armed robberies in which one person was shot.

In the first robbery a man told police he was robbed at gunpoint and the suspects tried to force him in the trunk of his car. However, the man escaped but the robbers stole his vehicle and his property.

Police believe the men also stopped a motorist at a traffic light at University Avenue and 50th Street, entered his pickup truck and told him to drive to an ATM. The man told police he was shot when he ran away at the ATM.

The suspects then left the area in the man's truck, which was later recovered.

In that case police collected a Hi-Point model JCP Smith & Wesson .40 caliber semiautomatic pistol. Police also searched Cruz's home and found a credit card that belonged to the girlfriend of the man who was attacked while helping Cervantes in June 2019.

In February 2020, Cervantes' family filed a missing persons report.

In April 2020, the Lubbock Metropolitan Special Crimes Unit and the Lubbock Police Department Forensic Investigation Unit responded to Hockley County to help the sheriff's office there investigate human remains in an abounded house.

A forensic investigator found in the home's kitchen a bullet that had human tissue.

In October 2020, after the Lubbock Police Department issued a news release seeking the public's help finding her. The man who was helping Cervantes in June called police saying he recognized the missing woman. He told investigators that after he was placed in the trunk of his car he could hear the two men force Cervantes to go with them.

He said he heard Cervantes say "Ow" before a vehicle sped off. He said he believed the robbers released Cervantes and she went back to her family. But he said he called police after seeing the news reports of Cervantes' disappearance.

The man was re-interviewed by police in November 2020 and identified Cruz and Reyes through a photo line up as the men who attacked him that night. He said he was 85 percent sure that the man was Cruz and was 80 percent sure the other man was Reyes, according to the warrant.

The next month, investigators spoke with Cruz and Reyes. Reyes denied any involvement in the robbery or in Cervantes' disappearance.

Cruz, on the other hand, boasted about manipulating Reyes into helping him rob the man who was helping Cervantes. However, he said he told a woman at the scene, who investigators believe to be Cervantes, to leave and she left in her vehicle. He said he stole the woman's phone to prevent her from calling the police.

However, in January 2021, Lubbock police officials said the human remains found were identified as Cervantes' after a forensic odontologist compared Cervantes’ dental records to the teeth of the remains.

A forensic scientist with the Texas Department of Public Safety also compared the bullet found with Cervantes' remains and linked it to the gun found in aggravated robberies that Cruz and Reyes were accused in.

Meanwhile, another witness told police Reyes told her that he and Cruz picked up a woman, tied her up and put her in the trunk of a car. She said Reyes told her that they shot the woman and burned her vehicle.

She said Reyes said the woman was crying and begged them to let her go. She said Reyes was upset with Cruz because he didn't want to do it.

Police investigators also obtained cell phone phone tower location data that indicates Cruz's phone was in the vicinity of the gas station where Cervantes was abducted, the house in Hockley County where her remains were discovered and where her car was set on fire, according to the warrant.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Lubbock murder warrant reveals new details in killing