Southeast Austin murder suspect connected to UT shooting, police say

AUSTIN - Austin police released more information about a recent arrest in a murder in southeast Austin.

Earlier this month, Juan Carlos Rodriguez-Gomez, 26, was arrested and charged with the murder of Mario Damian-Rayas.

Austin police say Rodriguez-Gomez was also involved in a shooting on the UT campus.

Connection to other crimes

Dig deeper:

Several shootings that were carried out in the Austin area in 2024 may all be connected. 

Juan Carlos Rodriguez-Gomez, 26, was accused of committing several crimes last year. He was arrested in March 2025 for the murder of Mario Damian Rayas, who was shot and killed in Southeast Austin on December 21, 2024. 

"On that date, at that time, Austin 911 received multiple calls of shots fired in the area, as well as a person who had been shot inside a vehicle," said APD Detective Israel Pina. 

The murder happened at the Chevy Chase Apartments on Huntwick Drive, but there was a complex across the street that caught the shooter on surveillance video, and investigators were able to collect the spent 9mm cartridge cases and put them into N.I.B.I.N. 

"The National Integrated Ballistic Information Network, or NIBIN, in a federal program that examines and cross-references ballistic evidence across jurisdictions," said UTPD Officer Ivan Ramos. 

Once they entered it into the system, that evidence came back showing a connection to a random shooting at the UT Austin Campus near the Moody Center a few months earlier, on July 13, 2024. 

"Surveillance footage captured a gunman firing randomly into a crowd of people near the venue," said Ramos. "The suspect fled the scene and was not located."

However, the evidence continued to stack up against Gomez from there. The UT incident gave links to another shooting at a gas station on Loyola Lane after the suspect fired four gunshots and hit one person’s vehicle, but there were not any witnesses or footage this time. 

"We confirmed some NIBID links between our cartridge cases and two other investigations currently being conducted," said Pina. "One being the aggravated assault case investigated by APD, which occurred on May 26, 2024." 

With all of these traces adding up, they looked into him further, discovering Gomez used to live on Huntwick Lane at the same apartment complex where Austin’s 70th homicide happened. His current address is only a couple blocks away and in the same direction as where the suspect was seen fleeing in the footage on the night of the murder. 

Other police contacts informed detectives that Gomez had been contacted or arrested six separate times within a block of there. 

"I issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Rodriguez Gomez on February 16, 2025, and I passed that off to our office to the Austin Police Department Tactical Intelligence Unit," said Pina.

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Last month, they found Gomez at a home in Manor. 

"Gomez fled out of the back of the residence and evaded capture for approximately 30 minutes to include swarming across a small body of water," said Pina. "He was ultimately placed in custody by those units."

Law enforcement carried out a search warrant and said they found various items hidden in a small vent in his bedroom. 

"The clothing worn by the suspect on the day of the Moody Center shooting was found concealed inside the residence; a firearm and ammunition were also discovered," said Ramos. 

There were also objects tied to a house burglary in mid-February 2024. He also has warrants for deadly conduct out of Bastrop County.

In May 2024, on Loyola Lane, a suspect, unidentified at the time, fired shots at a gas station, one of which hit a person's car.

According to the U.S. Marshals Office, he is an undocumented Mexican national. 

His bond is set at $1 million for murder, $350,000 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and two out-of-county misdemeanors, each worth $5,000. 

What happened to Mario Damian-Rayas?

The backstory:

On Dec. 21, Austin police received a call about gunshots in the area of E Oltorf Street and S Pleasant Valley Road in Southeast Austin.

APD responded at 9:25 p.m. to the Chevy Chase apartments on Huntwick Drive off Wickersham Lane and E. Oltorf. 

There, they found an unresponsive man in his 30s, later identified as Damian-Rayas, sitting in the front seat of a vehicle with apparent gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead at 9:32 p.m.

The investigation revealed he had been shot in the vehicle by a suspect who fled the area.

In March 2025, 26-year-old Juan Carlos Rodriguez-Gomez was charged with first-degree murder in the December 2024 death of 34-year-old Mario Damian-Rayas.

APD says there was no connection found between Damian-Rayas and Rodriguez-Gomez.

Southeast AustinCrime and Public Safety