Lakewood church shooting suspect Janece Yvonne Moreno’s past includes a checkered marriage, a controversial divorce, allegations of child and spousal abuse, a checkered criminal history, and a well-documented past. ABC News reported that the charges include a history of documented mental health issues. A document or record.
Houston Police Department Detective Chief Christopher Hassig told reporters Monday that Moreno, 36, uses “multiple pseudonyms,” including “Jeffrey Escalante.” Hassig said Moreno appears to have used both “male and female names” in the past, but interviews with investigators and documents about her life indicate that Moreno “has always been identified as female.” He said that it has been shown that.
A turbulent marriage dotted with abuse and mental health issues
Moreno was previously married to a man named Enrique Carranza III. It ended in a controversial divorce and bitter custody battle. Their divorce was finalized in 2022.
In court documents, Carranza described an unstable relationship on Moreno’s part and a separation from a severely “abusive” relationship. In an affidavit filed in connection with divorce and custody proceedings in 2020, he described Moreno’s mental health issues and violence against him and their son (in subsequent filings, Moreno She pushed back, claiming that her husband was the one who “physically assaulted” Ms. Moreno.) )
According to Carranza’s affidavit, the two first met in 2015 while working at Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Houston. The restaurant’s website describes it as a “family-friendly American-Italian restaurant.”
“As soon as we got married, my wife became abusive,” Carranza said in a sworn statement, adding that she is “diagnosed with schizophrenia, and each day brings a new battle or battle in her domain.” “It was like a fight,” he added, adding that he “put his wife through hell.” Because she soothes her paranoid thought patterns. ”
Carranza said he was physically assaulted by his wife, whom he called “Jeffrey.” She would “hit me with a key” and “hit me with a can of beans,” she said. He said she was so impatient with the “interview process” for her job that she “once ripped part of my eye out” and that she “stalked me and got me fired from her job.” I’ve done that before,” he said.
According to the affidavit, Carranza said that during a three-week visit with his estranged wife and their son on Christmas Day 2019, Moreno “called the police twice, and both times she said she had a gun.” “He had his son in his hands.”
“She has been diagnosed with schizophrenia. [Child Protective Services] “She says she can’t own a gun,” he said. “She’s scared of her knowing my address. She has a gun and she was showing it off while she was putting my son in the car.”
“I strongly believe that my wife, due to her schizophrenia, is incapable of distinguishing between reality and fiction,” Carranza wrote in his affidavit. He’s trying to grab it with his arms and pull it where it needs to be.” Where his shoulder is out of its socket. ”
He said Moreno was willfully neglectful of her son, refusing to take him to the doctor and keeping him “in one place.” She also said she was “abusing drugs” and keeping her son “up all night.”
An affidavit filed during the couple’s separation scandal by the child’s paternal grandmother, Wali Carranza, reflects concerns about “allegations of child abuse, neglect and reckless endangerment.”
In January 2020, Moreno “pulled an unlocked and loaded handgun from under the seat of his car and pointed it at Carranza’s head,” but his then-3-year-old son “first pulled an unlocked and loaded handgun. This was just hours after the loaded handgun was discovered. His eldest son is “in his own diaper bag,” according to his ex-mother-in-law’s affidavit.
When Carranza attempted to unlock her son from his car seat and remove him from the situation, as local authorities had “planned” to do, Moreno said the rear door was left “open” and his son was not seated in the car seat. “He then drove away,” the affidavit states. . “She was stopped by the Texas State Patrol because she evaded the Texas State Patrol on back roads and ignored lights and sirens. As a result, she placed Samuel in immediate danger,” Moreno said.
The stepmother’s affidavit also alleges that Moreno was subjected to involuntary psychiatric treatment under an alias on at least four occasions, suggesting Moreno should not have been able to possess a gun. She also claimed that Mr. Moreno “submitted a fraudulent birth certificate” for the child and “refused” to correct it, and that her father told hospital staff: [Carranza] He was either “dead” or “homeless” and missing.
The mother-in-law’s affidavit states that her son is “reluctant to file criminal charges against his now ex-wife because she is not a U.S. citizen” and that “she Because she has already been convicted, he said, she would likely be deported if convicted of a third-degree felony stemming from filing a fraudulent birth certificate. [Houston Police] Detectives say this is not what he would want for the woman he loved and married, and the mother of his children. He told police he was looking for a place where she could receive quality mental health care. he doesn’t hate her. He hates her for her mental illness and for refusing her treatment. ”
The stepmother’s affidavit details the abuse Moreno allegedly inflicted on her young son.
The child was “exposed to drugs due to the intentional use of illegal drugs by the mother and is legal” and “illegal drugs were found.” [the son’s] Blood and urine at birth. His mother refused to allow toxicology tests on her own blood and urine before her birth. The affidavit goes on to say that Moreno kept his son in “diapers” until he was 4 years old and said he was “too dirty to be potty trained.” It’s easier this way,” he says, “and she puts him in those clothes.” [girls’] The affidavit also alleges that during a Christmas visit in December 2019, Carranza spotted Moreno putting “what appeared to be adult cold medicine” into her son’s feeding tube, and that she said, “This is the only way I can clothe my son,” he said. sleep. ‘”
In a December 2021 affidavit filed by Moreno under the name “Jeffrey Moreno-Carranza,” she told a different story, saying her estranged husband was “a convicted sex offender.” and claimed to have “personal knowledge” that he had “multiple” DWIs. She also claimed that during her marriage, “he physically assaulted me on numerous occasions and made me fear for my safety and that of his son.” (Note: According to Florida’s 4th Circuit Court of Appeals and the Texas State Attorney’s Office, Carranza, who was previously convicted of attempted sexual assault of a child in Colorado, passed the sex offender requirement in March 2023. Convicted by a Florida jury of failure to comply) DPS records. )
“I have always been my son’s primary caregiver,” Moreno said in a 2021 affidavit, adding that her husband “never took care of him alone, and furthermore, he is a child with special needs.” They don’t have the ability to take care of themselves.” ”
Suspected shooter’s criminal history
Moreno was placed under an emergency detention order by Houston police in 2016 and is believed to have a “mental health history that has been documented through interviews with us and his family,” Hassig said at a news conference Monday. Ta.
Moreno had been arrested repeatedly in Texas over the past 20 years.
According to ABC affiliate KTRK, Moreno’s criminal history dates back to 2005, with the latest incident occurring in the summer of 2022.
Her charges include an assault in August 2009, for which she was sentenced to 180 days in Harris County Jail for kicking a detention officer. She was charged with forgery in May 2010, and she was sentenced to two days in Harris County Jail for attempting to use a counterfeit $100 bill. She was charged with theft in November 2010 and sentenced to 30 days in the Harris County Jail for stealing her hat and cosmetics. For her evading arrest charge in December 2010, she was sentenced to 75 days in Harris County Jail. Then, in June 2022, she was indicted for illegal possession of a weapon, which is still pending.
search for motives
Authorities are currently reviewing all evidence to understand Moreno’s motives and intentions. From raiding a Montgomery County home in Moreno’s name to a “dark-colored sedan” that was registered in her name and parked at her home, to forensic analysis of her digital devices, police The data and images stored there, according to a search warrant affidavit.
The warrant states that police will collect “ammunition, firearms, explosives, materials used in the manufacture of explosives, cell phones, computers, and any evidence that would tend to link Moreno to aggravated assault, possession of a prohibited weapon, or any crime.” Contains permission to search. and/or hoax bombs” may be found.
Authorities are also investigating a YouTube page called “Genes Moreno Investor,” according to a person briefed on the investigation. The page depicts Moreno as involved in real estate investing, posting one video with the caption, “We buy commercial residential apartment complexes.”
Police said Monday that the investigation is still “very new” and ongoing, and they are working quickly to determine why this person chose to open fire on the megachurch on Sunday. Officials said the process “will take time.”
“We’re in the early stages of this. We completely understand. We want to know the motive. How did she get the weapon? Why did she do this? We’re not there yet. ” said Special Agent Doug Williams. This was announced by the FBI Houston Field Office.
But even during this first 24 hours, authorities had already pointed to Ms. Moreno’s controversial relationship with her ex-husband and his family, which they believe may have contributed to her actions, and “anti-Semitic” Some documents have been recovered.
“We believe there was a family dispute between her ex-husband and his ex-husband’s family,” HPD’s Hassig said. “And some of those people are Jewish. So we believe that’s probably the root of all this.”
Hassig said “there was a sticker on the stock of the rifle” Moreno used at Lakewood. The sticker “simply said ‘Palestine.'”
-KTRK’s Miya Shay contributed to this report.
