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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 16874.html

"April 25, 2006, 8:50AM
Second attempt to rob Fort Bend house leaves 2 dead
Gunfight at the home previously hit by attackers kills a visitor and a suspect


By ERIC HANSON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Armed men who tried to rob a man on Saturday in his Fort Bend County home returned to the same house Sunday and engaged in a gunfight with the homeowner.

Two people died in the exchange of bullets. They were identified as Yolando Vallejo, 40, who was visiting, and Omar Medrano, 21, of Houston, one of the robbers, said Fort Bend County Sheriff Milton Wright.

Sheriff's investigators said the attackers were trying to steal a safe they apparently believed contained a large sum of cash. Police said it contained only about $2,000.

Wright said Medrano was wearing body armor and the bullet that killed him struck just above the garment.

The events leading to the double shooting started about 2 a.m. Saturday when Michael Tornero and his wife returned to their house in the 5500 block of Maybrook Park Lane in the Grand Lakes subdivision.

The couple saw two or three men in the front yard struggling with a safe outside the two-story house, police said.

Tornero confronted the men, who fired shots at him and then fled. Wright said Tornero suffered minor wounds from either bullet fragments or broken glass and was treated at the scene.

When the homeowner went into the house, he found his daughter and her friend tied up. Police learned the suspects had forced their way into the house a few minutes earlier and were trying to escape with the safe when Tornero returned.

Just before 10 p.m. Sunday, a family friend, Yolanda Vallejo, of Houston, arrived at the house and told Tornero she wanted to give him a cake, Wright said.

"She went back to get it out of the car and when she came back one of the hijackers was with her," Wright said.

Wright said Tornero realized he was being robbed again and grabbed a .38-caliber pistol and started firing at the man, who was later identified as Medrano.

Medrano ran from the house and one or two accomplices were waiting in a getaway car, police said.

"As the crook was running away he fired back into the house and struck the lady he had come in with originally, killing her instantly," Wright said.

Medrano jumped into a car and was driven from the scene. A few minutes later, just about 10:20 p.m., Harris County Sheriff's deputies were sent to the 20700 block of Cranfield in the west part of the county to check out a report of a dead body.

Police later learned Medrano's accomplices dumped his body on the side of the road and told his relatives about his death.

Harris County investigators arrested five people and released all of them after questioning. Charges against at least one person are pending, Wright said.

Wright said detectives believe the suspects had specific knowledge about the victims and the safe.

eric.hanson@chron.com"

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Very sad that the lady died, but Medrano definitely got what was coming to him.