By Jeffrey Jackson, Owatonna People’s Press

BLOOMING PRAIRIE — A Blooming Prairie woman and her brother face capital murder charges in Texas for their alleged role in the slaying of their aunt more than 19 years ago.

Angelica Marie Torres, 40, of Blooming Prairie and George “Poche” Torres Jr., 37, of Lino Lakes were arrested without incident by Edwards County Sheriff deputies Friday night at a home in Rocksprings, Texas, in connection with the homicide of Patricia Torres Paz in 1996.

Paz, the aunt of the Torres siblings, was 35 years old at the time of her death.

According to a statement released Monday by the Edwards County Sheriff’s Office, Paz was killed during a robbery on Feb. 26, 1996.

Capt. Darrell Volkmann, lead investigator for the Edwards County Sheriff’s Office, said Monday that Paz did not have much money — just a couple hundred dollars that had been given to her by her husband, a sheep shearer at a local ranch — when the robbery and homicide took place.

Volkmann said the Torres siblings and five others robbed Paz because they wanted the money to buy drugs.

“They were doped up on crack,” Volkmann said.

Paz’s body was discovered after family members had not seen her in several days, went to her house to look for her, forced their way in and found her seated in a chair. Her throat had been cut and it appeared that she had been beaten and stabbed, the statement said.

“The crime scene had been cleaned up, Paz had been bathed, and she had on fresh clothing,” the statement continued. “There was also an article of clothing that was left on top of a space heater so that a fire would start, but the flame extinguished itself.”

The investigation had grown cold until Edwards County Sheriff Pamela Elliott reopened the case on July 7, 2014.

“We started beating the bushes, following leads, establishing targets and turning over stones that were never turned over before,” Elliott said. “The effort is now paying off.”

Volkmann — who had just retired from the San Antonio Police Department and moved to Rocksprings, about 110 miles northwest of San Antonio — was made lead investigator in the case the sheriff had reopened in part because of Volkmann’s arrival.

But at first, few people in the small town of about 1,200 people located about 60 miles from the Mexican border would talk with him, he said.

“They just buttoned up. They wouldn’t talk or were afraid to talk,” Volkmann said.

But as more people came to know him, they began to open up to him, he added.

The sheriff said a break in the case came on July 7, 2015, a year to the day when the case was reopened.

Volkmann said the break came when someone who was afraid he might be implicated in the killing started to talk.

The arrest of Angelica and George Torres in Texas came by pure chance, Volkmann said. The two siblings had come from Minnesota to Texas because their mother was having a five-valve bypass operation done on her heart.

The warrants for their arrests had been issued when a deputy drove by their mother’s home in Rocksprings and noticed George Torres sitting on the porch. The sheriff’s office had planned to ask federal marshals to execute the warrants until the deputies found them in Rocksprings.

Sheriff Elliott also said that the arrests of Angelica and George Torres were just the beginning and that there are “more suspects of interest” that her office is closing in on.

“The ball is rolling and it’s just a matter of time now,” Sheriff Elliott said. “More arrests will be made.”

Captain Volkmann said that two additional warrants had been issued on Monday and three more are expected to be issued soon. He declined to name the other five suspects, but he did say that none of them lived in Minnesota.

Angelica Torres has a long record of offenses in southern Minnesota, mostly in Steele County, though most of the charges were traffic violations — speeding, no proof of insurance, not wearing a seatbelt — dating back to 2001.

In 2010, she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic assault and was sentenced to 90 days in the Steele County Detention, 80 days of which was stayed. In exchange for her guilty plea, an additional charge of malicious punishment of a child, a gross misdemeanor, was dropped.

Her most recent traffic violation came in March of this year when she charged with speeding. She pleaded guilty in June.

Although Texas court records show Angelica Torres to live in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota court records from 2008 to the present list her address as Waseca. An employee at the Wal-Mart in Waseca, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed that Angelica Torres had worked at that store, though did not say when she left the store.

If convicted of capital murder in the case, Angelica and George Torres face the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Suzanne Rook, the managing editor of the Waseca County News contributed to this story.