Tucson News / Murder

Back in October I got a message from my niece in Tucson. Needless to say she was more than a little upset by the news. This young man is the half-brother of the young man serving 22 years for my brother's murder, he was also one of four involved in it. Released from prison in September he is believed to be the suspect in a double homicide in Phoenix, Arizona.

 

10.23.13

 

Man suspected in Phoenix double murder, served time for crimes in Tucson - KVOA.com

TUCSON - The search is on for a Tucson man suspected of killing a teenage girl, and her boyfriend Monday night in Phoenix.
24 year old Hector Taner Karaca was released from prison last month and is considered armed and dangerous.
Karaca is linked to the 2006 murder of a Quick Mart employee in Tucson.
While a murder charge was ultimately dropped, he served time for hindering prosecution. Loved ones of the man killed are both angry and terrified that Karaca is on the loose.
"It's very scary, I'm really upset," says a relative of Christopher Cottle who wants to remain anonymous.
Seven years ago Cottle was shot and killed during a robbery on July 15th 2006. He was 50 years old, a husband, father, grandfather, and military veteran.
"Fought for his country, came back and they took his life in his own backyard, that's really sad," says a family member.
Her grief now extends to the families of a young Phoenix couple Kristen Furgeri and Jose Villa
Police believe Karaca once a juvenile suspect in her loved one's murder, shot and killed the couple Monday, then took their car. It was found the next day torched.
"It's heartbreaking, they'll never be the same person anymore," she says, "Part of them has been taken away from them."
"I just pray for them, that's all I can say is I pray for them. And I hope they can get through this, because it was really hard for us," she adds.
Karaca, who's now on the run, was released from prison September 5, without parole, despite multiple disciplinary infractions behind bars.
He's described as six feet tall, 175 pounds with black hair and brown eyes. He has several tattoos 'Tucson" across his upper back and 'Chavez' across his stomach, likely for his friend Daniel Chavez the 27 year old convicted of murdering Cottle.
"I can't even talk, it's just so hard to know that he's out there again doing this, it's really really hard," says Cottle's family member.
Phoenix Police say since Karaca has strong ties to Tucson, they want everyone to be on the lookout.

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Ex-con sought in Phoenix killings shoots himself | KVOA.com | Tucson, Arizona

12.13.13

PHX double murder suspect kills self after high speed chase in Tucson -KVOA.com

 

 

TUCSON- A murder suspect is dead, after leading Tucson Police on a high speed chase across the city's south side.
The chain of events started at 9:30am Thursday morning, when U.S. Marshals informed TPD that 24-year-old Hector Karaca was staying at La Quinta Inn at 7001 S. Tucson Boulevard.
Karaca was accused of killing a 25-year-old man and his 17-year-old girlfriend on October 21 up in Phoenix.
TPD Sgt. Chris Widmer says at around 1:15pm on Thursday, Karaca and a few other people left La Quinta Inn and got into a pickup truck.
They drove to the Spectrum Shopping Center at 1217 West Irvington Road.  They parked their car behind the Peter Piper's Pizza.  Karaca and one other individual got out of the truck and carjacked a red Camaro, after holding a gun to the driver's head.
Karaca started driving away in the Camaro at a high speed and TPD started chasing him by air and ground.
Near 5th Avenue and 22nd Street, Karaca collided with a pickup truck in front of Garcia's Cleaners.  The collision ended the chase, but Karaca got out of the car and began running through several residents' yards.  Sgt. Widmer says he then took out a handgun and shot himself in the head.  He was pronounced dead at the hospital.  The driver of the pickup truck tells News 4 Tucson he suffered only minor scrapes and bruises.
"It was like something out of the movies," says Eddie Escalante who works at Garcia's Cleaners.  "It was like the movie "The Fast and the Furious", just hauling butt.  The Camaro was at least four car lengths ahead of the cops."
Sgt. Widmer says TPD has two people in custody who were with Karaca when Thursday's incidents unfolded.
Digging deeper into Karaca's past, the News 4 Tucson Investigators learned Karaca was released from prison in September without parole.  He was the suspect in the 2006 murder of Christopher Cottle.  Cottle was working at a Quick Mart in Tucson, when he was killed during a robbery.
That murder charge was dropped, but Karaca served time for hindering the prosecution.

 

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KVOA Tucson News Footage

Tucson News

Gatherings

I stood across the room watching Meah.  She found a seat on the couch next to her aunt whom she seldom sees but two or three times a year. With everything that's been going on, all the get-togethers as of late she's had the blessed opportunity to see this side of the family more than usual.  Her father walked up behind me and he wrapped his arms around me.  His strong hold on me felt good, I felt safe.  I've always felt secure and protected in his arms.  We watched as she manipulated her hands in talk, her limbs taking flight giving animation to her words and he softly chuckled in my ear commenting "she's just like you."  I turned, taking my sight off her and planting my visual senses on his hazel eyes asking whether he thought that was a good thing or not. He smiled and leaned into me, his soft kiss on my lips answered my question.

We stood there a good ten minutes watching her.  A nine year old and forty one year old deep in conversation but I don't think her aunt even had an opportunity to speak.  When I asked her later what the conversation was about, her nonchalant reply to me amused me "Oh, you know, this, that and everything else " then she asked me "Is there really life after death?"  I didn't know where that had come from and I asked her if that was the conversation she had had with her aunt. She answered me with a questionable "no." She proceeded to ask me about a picture she saw on my camera from Christmas.

The blob on the right,
almost translucent we have no idea what it is

There has been a few strange happenings here in the domicile.  And although I'm hesitant in speaking of this with the fear of sounding "crazy" (I could cite a rogue blog entry here pertaining to me) at least I know now I'm not the only one who has witnessed these strange occurrences.  Besides the odd image in the picture shown here which I shrugged off as a glitch with the settings, although a second picture taken within a minute was fine, there have been some eerie, unexplained and unusually bizarre incidents going on.

I've seemed to have shrugged off the majority of these events, giving them little if any respectable merit at all. Just as I have with some individuals.  There was an evening I had awaken, got up to go to the bathroom and as I walked past the living room heading back to bed my sight caught a glimpse of a figure standing in the living room.  It frightened me and I was taken aback at the time but too tired and sick to think about it, convincing myself it was just my imagination especially since when I took a double take it no longer was there.  But the thing that disturbs me, which I don't know if she's even congnizant of but wonder now after asked that question, was the night I heard a loud bang from her room and I thought she had fallen out of bed.  It was after 2 am, I had been just drifting off to sleep when I heard the loud noise and I rushed to her room to see her garbage pail had been propeled across the room and its contents scattered on the floor.  After I checked on her and seen she was still tucked tightly under the covers and fast asleep, I picked up the can and garbage, on the floor among the scattered wrappings and crumpled papers her rosary lay.  I stood there perplexed wondering how and why that happened. And although a young boy died in a tragic accident here in the 60's  I've never had the feeling of uneasiness in this house until that night and I find myself repeating over and over in my head, it's not the dead you need to fear, it's the living.