On May 22, 2024, at about 9:59 p.m., Austin police responded to a shooting at the Villas de la Plaza apartments, 9601 Middle Fiskville Road, and found 35-year-old Wilfredo Benitez-Jimenez collapsed on the living room floor of his apartment with apparent gunshot wounds. Emergency medical personnel pronounced him dead at 10:13 p.m. Investigators determined he had been shot inside his apartment and that the suspects fled the scene in a vehicle.

Detectives processed the scene, interviewed witnesses and reviewed apartment security footage. In the weeks after the killing, detectives used the footage, witness statements and cell phone location data to identify two suspects, Carlos J. Maldonado and Victor Antonio Maldonado Villalobos. Security video reportedly showed two people matching their descriptions entering and leaving the apartment around the time gunshots were heard. Maldonado was arrested June 12 in Pflugerville; he told police Villalobos was the other person in the video and said they went to Benitez-Jimenez’s apartment because they felt threatened. Authorities believe Villalobos fired the fatal shots and both men were charged with murder.

Are there readers who knew Benitez-Jimenez or who have further information about what happened that night?