DALLAS — A man who did not want his girlfriend to have an abortion shot and killed her during a confrontation in a Dallas parking lot, police said.
He had been in jail since Friday on murder charges.
Texas banned abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy in September 2021. But nearly all abortions have been halted in Texas since Roe v. Wade was overturned last summer, except in cases of medical emergencies.
Gabriella Gonzalez, 26, was with her boyfriend, 22-year-old Harold Thompson, on Wednesday when he tried to strangle her, according to an affidavit from the warrant. She had returned the night before from Colorado, where she had gone to have an abortion.
“It is believed that the accused was the child’s father,” the affidavit said. “The defendant did not want (Gonzalez) to have an abortion.”
Surveillance video from the parking lot shows Gonzalez “shrugging him off,” police said, and the two continue walking. Thompson then pulls out a gun and shoots Gonzalez in the head. She falls to the ground and Thompson shoots her several times before running away, the affidavit said.
Thompson was arrested later Wednesday and is being held without bail at the Dallas County Jail. The court records listed no attorney to speak on his behalf.
Gonzalez’s sister was at the scene and heard the shooting, police said. Another witness saw Thompson try to strangle Gonzalez, but was unable to call police because she did not have her cell phone.
At the time of the shooting, Thompson had been charged with assaulting a relative, who accused him of strangling her in March.
The March affidavit does not specifically name Gonzalez as the person who was attacked. But it does say that the woman told police that Thompson “beat her up several times throughout their relationship” and that Thompson told police that the woman was pregnant with his child at the time.
The woman “reiterated that she feared the suspect because he had threatened to harm her family and her children,” the affidavit said.
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