Machete Murder

[bloodrayne]

Pearl Brewery retiree found hacked to death by machete

By Mary Moreno
San Antonio Express-News
Posted : 12/13/2003 12:00 AM

Clemente Garcia hadn't answered his telephone for several days when his daughter Grace went to look for him at his apartment at about 2 a.m. Friday.
A neighbor saw her come in the apartment building, and she greeted him with "It's just me" as she entered apartment No. 2 on the 200 block of Lotus Street near downtown. Seconds later, Grace Garcia was pounding on the neighbor's door screaming, "My dad is dead," according to a police report.

Police found the 63-year-old Pearl Brewery retiree dead on his bed, stabbed and covered in blood. On the living room floor, police found a machete.

Police on Friday weren't sure who killed Clemente Garcia, but another neighbor told police that she heard him arguing with another man Thursday.

She heard Garcia say, "Get out of my apartment," according to the police report. The man, whom she didn't recognize, reportedly said, "You owe me." She told police the rest of the conversation was unintelligible.

"I just want everybody to know he was a loving, caring father and grandfather," Grace Garcia said. "I don't see how somebody could be that mean and brutal to hurt a man like that."

Garcia said she was 14 when her parents divorced and she chose to live with her father. Growing up in his home made them that much closer and his death that much more painful.

She said her father was playing an active role in raising his grandchildren and looked forward to seeing the birth of the child his youngest daughter is expecting.

"My sister is going to have a baby, and he can't be there see the little baby be born," she said.

Grace Garcia said her father always was willing to help anyone, and thinks that generosity might have contributed to his death. Recently, he had been helping a man she didn't know, she said.