He was one of the FBI’s 10 most wanted fugitives — now federal prosecutors have filed their fifth superseding indictment against Mexican cartel leader Jose Rodolfo Villareal-Hernandez, also known as “El Gato.”
Authorities say Villareal-Hernandez is connected to a the 2013 murder of a man shot and killed at a Southlake shopping center, and is now facing a murder-for-hire charge. If convicted, he could be eligible for the death penalty.
The violent crime at Southlake’s popular Townsquare shook the community over a decade ago. Now, 12 years later, Villareal-Hernandez, who is accused of orchestrating that murder, is charged with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, interstate stalking, and now, continuing a criminal enterprise.
Paul Coggins, former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said Villareal-Hernandez ordered the 2013 murder to eliminate one of the men responsible for his father’s death.
“A rival drug cartel that was responsible for the death of the defendant’s father,” Paul Coggins said. “So, there was a long-held plot of revenge at the heart of this indictment, at the heart of this story.”
Authorities said that in May 2013, Villareal-Hernandez, who was part of the Beltran Leyva Organization cartel, ordered the hit on Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa in Southlake. Guerrero Chapa was allegedly a lawyer for a rival cartel.
Authorities said Guerrero Chapa was gunned down while sitting in his vehicle. He had been in the area shopping with his wife.
While others were convicted, Villareal-Hernandez remained on the run for years. He was finally arrested in Mexico in 2023 and extradited to the U.S. this past February.
“It just shows the lengths that the federal government will go to, the federal government, the state government, will go to in a case like this, in a murder case, in a murder for hire case,” Coggins said.
Coggins added that if a jury finds Villareal-Hernandez guilty on the murder-for-hire charge, he is eligible for the death penalty.
“Then they move to a special sentencing hearing where the jury considers you know, all these factors that cut against death penalty and in favor of death penalty, and the basic factor, the underlying factor, is did the defendant intend to kill someone, and was it premeditated?” said Coggins.
Villareal-Hernandez’s arraignment is set for Oct. 29 in Fort Worth.
