Residents of the small Texas town of Centerville remained vigilant for three weeks while authorities searched for a murderer who escaped a prison bus and stabbed and wounded the driver last month near their rural community
Following his escape, law enforcement vigorouslyHighway 7 and other roads in Centerville, escorting many of the city's nearly 1,000 residents to their homes to ensure they felt safe.
State troopers, Texas Department of Criminal Justice officers, the U.S. Marshals service and sheriff's deputies from Leon County — which includes Centerville — searched the area for Lopez for weeks with no luck. Lopez and another person kidnapped Ramirez and left him “hog tied in an outside room of my mom’s residence” as they went to pick up money and marijuana that Ramirez’s family had left for them, according to court records. Lopez later bludgeoned Ramirez's head with a pickaxe and buried his body in a desert.
“These precious people who loved and were loved by so many, will never be forgotten,” the Collins family said in a statement. Steve Bezner, the family’s pastor, described the Houston area family as having “the greatest character, the deepest faith and unrelenting kindness and love.” Loftin, a pastor at the Cowboy Church of Leon County, said he used to go to the family’s ranch, which also features a “beautiful fishing lake and a pier,” to help with cattle management. He called them “good, salt of the earth people.”
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