HPD: Violent suspect wanted in fatal shooting, chase

Detectives say Aranda shot women while on cocaine

HOUSTON – Police are searching for a man who shot two women in a car. Investigators said the same man led officers on a chase in April with his four children in his pickup truck.

Houston police said Noe Aranda, 32, was a passenger in a Dodge Magnum that his girlfriend, Yadira Reynosa, was driving westbound on the Katy Freeway about 8:45 p.m. Thursday. A third woman, Cristina Hernandez, was a backseat passenger in the car, investigators said.

Detectives said Aranda was on cocaine and had become paranoid. He began shooting Hernandez, police said. Hernandez then asked Reynosa to tell her children that she loved them, investigators said.

Aranda told Reynosa to drive faster and then shot her in the hand and leg, investigators said. She then slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car near Westgreen, police said. She did not know if Hernandez was still alive, officials said.

Aranda then got in the driver's seat, police said.

A witness told detectives that he saw Hernandez being thrown from the back seat of the car near Grand Parkway. The witness stopped to help Hernandez, but several vehicles ran over her before he could get to her.

Hernandez died at the scene.

Investigators said Aranda continued driving to the Brookshire area. Around F.M. 1489, he slammed into a guardrail, spun his vehicle and then clipped an 18-wheeler. The car went across the grassy median, through the eastbound lanes of traffic on I-10 and crashed on the side of the road, police said. He bailed out and ran, detectives said.

Aranda has been charged with murder and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

Aranda made headlines in Houston in April. Police said he led officers on a multi-county chase after he got into a fight with his pregnant wife. Four children were in the pickup truck during the chase.

Aranda was charged in the chase, but police were never able to take him into custody.

Pearland police said they stopped Aranda and his brother in late April because of a broken taillight. That set off another chase that went through a cemetery, where headstones were knocked over. The chase ended at an apartment complex, where Aranda and his brother jumped out of the car and ran, investigators said. The brother was arrested, but Aranda was not.

"(The brother) said he had run because he was wanted of immigration violations and possibly for human trafficking also," said Lt. Onesimo Lopez of the Pearland Police Department. "It appears to just be a continuing pattern of behavior for this individual. It's obvious that he doesn't want to go to jail."

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Images: Husband accused in high-speed chase