Accused hit man to stand trial for toddler’s death
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January 26, 2009 - 10:08 PM
By Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor

EDINBURG - An accused hitman charged in the fatal shooting of a 3-year-old last year is set to take his case before a jury today.

Prosecutors allege Dimas Daniel Gonzalez Zamora, 21, accidentally killed toddler Yaritza Garabay during a drive-by shooting July 30 near the intersection of Sugar and Owassa roads.

Authorities believe he had been hired to kill the child's father as part of a long-running feud between two Mexican crime families, Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies said.

Gonzalez pleaded not guilty to capital murder charges in October and is expected to maintain that plea today. His attorney - Roy Garza - did not return calls for comment Monday.

Sheriff's investigators believe the feud that purportedly ended in Yaritza's death began over five years ago in the southern Mexican state of Michoacán over a struggle for dominance between the Gulf Cartel and a rival group.

In September 2003, four men killed top Gulf lieutenant Rigoberto Mendoza Orozco at a safe house there, and deputies suspect the Garabay family may have played a role in the struggle.

The conflict spread to the Rio Grande Valley in July 2008, after a Garabay family associate opened fire at a cock fight in Alton. A key Mendoza family member was injured in that attack, and Yaritza's father - Amador Garabay - bonded out the alleged shooter.

Investigators believe the Mendoza family hired Gonzalez and three other Mexican nationals to kill Garabay in retribution.

But when the men fired 17 shots into the Garabays' Volkswagen Beetle, Garabay and his wife ducked down allowing bullets to hit their 3-year-old daughter, who was strapped into a car seat. A 17-year-old niece was also hit but was treated and released later that night.

Gonzalez has remained in the Hidalgo County jail since his arrest. His alleged accomplices - including one identified as 31-year-old Favio Jesus Chipres Torres - remain at large and are believed to be in Mexico.

Another Garabay family member - Margarita Gaytan, 49 - was also arrested last month after she allegedly tried to sneak a gun into one of Gonzalez's pre-trial hearings.

If convicted, Gonzalez could face up to life in prison or the death penalty.
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