On an isolated cul-de-sac outside Cleburne, a woman bolted from a house last night, escaping with her children and bleeding father.
The woman called the Johnson County sheriff's department as she fled. She said her brother was still at the house, which belonged to their father, whom he had just shot.
It was 9:22 p.m. Manuel Rodriguez, 72, would be declared dead of gunshot wounds in an hour, but the night was just beginning for his son.
When Johnson County sheriff's deputies pulled up to the cul-de-sac, they said, 48-year-old Omar Rodriguez had holed up inside a neighboring house with a gun.
The deputies heard four shots from inside the house, then silence. They figured Rodriguez had killed himself—as those who kill their family sometimes do.
But when the deputies entered the house on Harriette Circle, Rodriguez was still alive and still shooting, according to a statement from Sheriff Bob Alford.
A deputy was winged by debris in the gunfire, the sheriff said. Another deputy fired back at Rodriguez, hitting him in the shoulder and ending the firefight.
Rodriguez was being held in a hospital on Saturday, recovering from his wound. Deputies were preparing to charge him with the murder of his father.