Harlingen police seek leads to track killer in 2001 murder case

HARLINGEN — Almost 24 years ago, police officers found a 21-year-old man dead, bleeding from several gunshot wounds at an apartment complex’s main entrance.

Since then, Jesus Javier Villarreal’s family has longed for justice in one of the city’s unsolved murders.

Now, officials are taking a new look at the case, counting on tracking a lead that could lead them to the killer.

“We’re doing this in the interest of justice,” interim Police Chief Alfredo Alvear said Tuesday. “We want to let the family know they’re not forgotten. We’re trying to reach out to the community to get some leads to properly prosecute this case.”

On May 25, 2001, gunshots led residents to call police to an apartment complex at 1410 Morgan Blvd., where officers found Villarreal dead, shot several times.

“Upon arrival of officers, they noticed a subject lying on the sidewalk just west of the main entrance inside the apartment complex,” the police department posted on Facebook. “There were no witnesses to the shooting.”

At the time of the murder, some residents at the old Maryland Apartments said they heard gunshots at about 2 a.m.

That night, Villarreal was recording CDs at a friend’s house in San Juan before leaving at about 1:20 a.m., planning to take his friend, girlfriend and two daughters to eat dinner, Elizabeth Villarreal, his mother, said at the time.

Before the shooting, her son went to his apartment, she said.

“He was just going to change his shirt and he didn’t come back,” his mother said, adding the car’s radio was turned up so high his friends didn’t hear gunshots.

“We just want justice,” she said then.

Investigators are urging anyone with information to call the police department at 956-216-5401 or Crime Stoppers at (956) 425-8477.

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