‘I Killed My Family:’ Texas Man Confesses to Brutal Murders

Junaid Mehmood, 27, confessed to killing his three young children and shooting his wife in the head at their Texas City apartment on Jan. 3, 2019, police said. (Texas City Police Department)

A Texas man confessed to killing three children and wounding his apparent wife in a call with dispatchers shortly before being arrested, police officials said.

Junaid Mehmood, 27, was arrested behind a Panera Bread location in southeast Houston late on Jan. 3, hours after police officers discovered three dead children and a wounded woman in an apartment in Texas City after responding to a welfare concern.

The children were under 1, 2, and 5 years old, respectively.

The woman was rushed to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. She was in stable condition.

Investigators told KTRK that Mehmood confessed to shooting his four family members and that he was highly emotional, largely “incoherent,” and frequently yelling. At one point, he said: “I killed my family.”

He was arrested on an unrelated warrant and was going to be held in the Texas City Jail, the Texas City Police Department said in a press release. Detectives obtained a search warrant for the apartment and were starting to process the scene for evidence late Thursday.

Texas City police spokesman Lt. Kenneth Brown said that the scene of the crime was intense.

“It’s a very intense scene over there. Everybody involved is either deceased or injured,” Brown told the Houston Chronicle. The wife hasn’t spoken with investigators as of yet because of the severity of her injuries, he added.

The apartment is located in the Pointe Ann Apartments in the 1200 block of 10th Street. It’s near the Texas City Police Department headquarters on 9th Avenue North.

The department was working with the Houston Police Department, League City Police Department, Texas Rangers, and the Galveston County District Attorney’s Office to investigate the murders.

Mehmood told police officers that he threw the gun he used to kill the children into a field near the Panera, reported KPRC. KHOU reported on Friday morning that investigators were still searching for the gun.

Family members told KPRC that all three children belonged to the woman and that Mehmood was dating her.

Texas City is about 30 miles southeast of Houston and near Galveston Bay.

Criminal Record

Mehmood has a criminal record, according to court records obtained by the Chronicle.

He was arrested for hitting a girlfriend in 2014 and served 20 days in jail.

The conditions of that sentencing made it illegal for him to possess a firearm.

The next year, Mehmood was arrested again after shoving a family member and robbing him. Later that year, he pleaded guilty to a separate robbery charge and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Crime Decreased in 2017

The FBI said that both violent crime and property crime decreased in 2017 compared to 2016. Overall violent crime decreased 0.2 percent from 2016 to last year, while property crime decreased 3 percent during that time, the agency said in September 2018, releasing data from the previous year.

“There were more than 1.2 million violent crimes reported to UCR nationwide in 2017. There was a 0.7 percent decrease in murders and a 4 percent decrease in robberies from 2016 to 2017. Aggravated assaults increased 1 percent in 2017. The FBI began collecting data solely on an updated rape definition last year, and 135,755 rapes were reported to law enforcement in 2017,” the FBI stated.

“The report also showed there were more than 7.7 million property crimes last year. Burglaries decreased 7.6 percent and larceny-thefts decreased 2.2 percent. Motor vehicle thefts increased 0.8 percent from 2016 to 2017.”

The figures were compiled from more than 13,000 law enforcement agencies around the United States that submitted their crime data to the FBI.

From NTD News