Alleged Smuggler Crashes into Falfurrias Home

Reported by: Bill Barajas
Email: bill@krgv.com
Last Update: 7:41 am

FALFURRIAS - A high-speed chase left one Falfurrias woman dead after an alleged smuggler lost control of his vehicle and crashed into her home. CHANNEL 5 NEWS learned 70-year-old Berta Gonzalez was asleep in her bedroom when a Suburban hit her home and and crashed through her bedroom.

Family and friends gathered at what remained of the house. Gonzalez's daughter, Cecilia Molina, says she'll never forget when she got the news.

"It was like a dream. I didn't think it was true. It couldn't be," said Molina.

Gonzalez was a mother of six. Coming back to find the home they grew up in destroyed was hard on the woman's children.

"It was a shock, just a shock seeing, you know, the whole house, half the house just ripped open. I mean, when I saw my mom's mattress and other things out there on the floor, it just (was) not something you expect," Gonzalez's son, Robert Gonzalez said.

The thought of his mother's death is too much for him.

"It hurts me that my mom had to go like that. You know old age, anything else, illness, but not like that in her sleep she didn't deserve that," Robert Gonzalez said.

The family says police should have handled the situation differently; they say they think it could of made the difference between life and death for their loved one.

"We're not trying to blame the cops. We're not trying to blame anybody. But the thing is, yes, he was breaking the law having illegal in there. But did he shoot at you? Was there a purpose to chase him that fast. Let him run. Give him some time to run. Catch him there out in the open, somewhere out on the highway, somewhere but in a residential. I think that's why a lot of people are shocked," said Robert Gonzalez.

Family and friends are planning to rebuild the 70-year-old's home. Robert Gonzalez tell us it's what his mother would have wanted. The driver of the vehicle that struck the home is being treated in a Corpus Christi hospital. No information on his condition was available. The illegal immigrants were turned over to Border Patrol. No word on their condition was released.

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