On February 15, 1971, 32-year-old Deputy Samuel Garcia Infante Jr., a Navy veteran who had served five years with the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department and previously with the Corpus Christi Police Department, was abducted and killed in the attack known as the Trinity River Massacre. Infante and Deputies William Reese and Arthur Robertson of the Ellis County Sheriff’s Department were taken by two men while investigating a burglary, driven to a secluded area near the Trinity River, disarmed, bound and executed execution-style. A fourth deputy escaped and called for help; a fifth deputy was shot in the chest and survived.

The suspects, Rene Adolpho Guzman and Leonardo Ramos Lopez, were later captured after a manhunt. They said heroin addiction and the need to stay near suppliers in Dallas motivated the crime. Both were convicted of murder and initially sentenced to death; their sentences were commuted to life in 1972. Lopez was paroled in 1991; Guzman remained in prison until his death in 2017. Infante was survived by his wife, son, parents, four brothers and two sisters, and was buried at Moore Memorial Gardens in Arlington, Texas.