No motive in shootings that left Weslaco mother hospitalized, daughter slain

WESLACO - Yellow plastic tape hung from the white picket fence that lines the Bocanegra home's front yard Monday morning.

The police line across the driveway was all that remained after a barrage of gunshots killed Donna Lee Bocanegra and sent her mother to a hospital's intensive care unit Sunday afternoon.

Police said as many as three men entered the Bocanegra house at 1814 W. Sixth St. about 1 p.m. Sunday.

What may have transpired between when the men first entered the house, fired the gunshots and left 65-year-old Manuela Bocanegra crying out for help as she lay in her driveway while her daughter faced death inside remains unclear.

Officers found no signs of forced entry into the home, Weslaco police spokesman David Molina said.

Investigators believe two or three Hispanic men were involved with the shootings and took off from the house in a maroon 2002 to 2004 Ford Mustang.

A passerby called 9-1-1 about 1:10 p.m. Sunday as Manuela lay in her driveway bleeding shortly after neighbors told police they heard gunshots. Emergency crews rushed both Bocanegras to area hospitals for treatment.

Donna Lee, 26, was pronounced dead at Knapp Medical Center in Weslaco later Sunday afternoon. Manuela remained in critical condition at an intensive care unit at Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen late Monday afternoon.

No motive had been identified by police Monday in Weslaco's first murder of the year, but investigators continued to make progress on several leads, Molina said.

Neighbors said Monday they were shocked to find out about the shootings.

"It's a quiet, peaceful neighborhood," said Marisol Ortega, 36, who works at the nearby Casa de Amigos No. 5 retirement community. "That's why I am so shocked."

But another neighbor, Weslaco schoolteacher Melissa Diaz, 34, said she installed steel bars on her home's windows after four burglaries in a two-year period.

The burglars mainly made off with their television, digital cameras and three notebook computers issued to Diaz by the school district.

Diaz, who lives with her mother, said she felt a little better when investigators told her they did not believe the people responsible for Sunday's shootings broke into the Bocanegra house.

Still, because of Sunday's brutal shootings, "we're all kind of afraid to say anything," she said.

Ortega said Manuela was known in the neighborhood for helping people who spoke only Spanish read letters or notices in English. Manuela also sold insurance and had worked a notary public, she said.

Records show Manuela and Donna lived at the house, as well as Jerry Bocanegra, 30, and Erika Bocanegra, 24.

A man and a woman pulled up to the Bocanegra house Monday morning in a 2005 Cadillac registered to Manuela Bocanegra. The woman burst into tears at the sight of the police tape at the house, but quickly left as several television crews filmed the home.

Sunday's shooting was the 19th murder investigated by local law enforcement agencies in Hidalgo County this year.