TX - Elizabeth Barraza, 29, murdered setting up garage sale, Harris County, Jan 2019 #2

[BaffleMe]

KHOU also released the raw video from the Sheriff's Department on Youtube. The shooting starts just after 1:30. Poor Elizabeth, you can hear her screams. Terrible.

Sheriff's office releases new video in shooting death of Tomball woman

This time, I heard the shots. SO LOUD. But I did not hear the "hello" or anything else.

 

[MURDERER_SERVANT]

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I wonder if EB was an inspector at that company? If she was , then could a report prepared or worked on by EB in the workplace affected or would affect someone's economic interests? A company owner whose interests are at risk may have wanted to eliminate EB with a hired killer.
Though I'm sure the police must have looked at this angle and scanned her customer portfolio. Jmo

 

[Rollsballs]

I will say in my opinion the only thing on paper that she is associated with that involves the kinda money ppl. use to justify hiring an outside source, is the pipe line, I have been involved with unnamed national companies of the utility variety you do not want to stand in the way of progress. Im wondering about digging into court filings against her company where she is a documented as being involved. IMO Probably reaching but I could have disappeared if I kept asking questions- its tied to alot of ppls. livelihood.

 

[TacitusKilgore]

I will say in my opinion the only thing on paper that she is associated with that involves the kinda money ppl. use to justify hiring an outside source, is the pipe line, I have been involved with unnamed national companies of the utility variety you do not want to stand in the way of progress. Im wondering about digging into court filings against her company where she is a documented as being involved. IMO Probably reaching but I could have disappeared if I kept asking questions- its tied to alot of ppls. livelihood.

Maybe, but it just doesn't seem like a woman having a garage sale to raise spending money for a trip is in the type of position to be influencing any utility contracts.

 

[MimosaMornings]

I wonder if EB was an inspector at that company? If she was , then could a report prepared or worked on by EB in the workplace affected or would affect someone's economic interests? A company owner whose interests are at risk may have wanted to eliminate EB with a hired killer.
Though I'm sure the police must have looked at this angle and scanned her customer portfolio. Jmo

I thought she was a data analyst or compiled data.

Example - Information from a “pig” would have been sent to Rosen for a data person to compile. The data complied is intended to show “abnormalities in a pipeline as the “pig” travels the length of the pipeline. (thin places, cracks, etc.)

“Pig” is pipeline inspection gauge.
Pigging - Wikipedia

JMO

 

[BaffleMe]

Didn't hear any voices...

 

[Rollsballs]

Maybe, but it just doesn't seem like a woman having a garage sale to raise spending money for a trip is in the type of position to be influencing any utility contracts.

No more along the lines of if she did or didnt do something which stopped or should have stopped a multi million dollar contract- 1 pissed off Welder or a group protecting the environment. Like I said Im reaching for anything that could justify bringing in a hired gun.

 

[bears10]

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I don’t hear any words, let alone hear them clearly. It’s interesting how everyone hears (or doesn’t hear) different things.

 

[stmarysmead]

I d0nt think EB was in a high enough decision-making position at work to ‘symbolize’ that company to anyone else. I think an angry welder or environmentalist would place the blame/their fury above her pay grade. She probably submitted information to others who actually had their names associated with the decision, not hers.

So I ask myself, where was EB a decision maker? Where would her name and identity be associated with a decision that could lead to such personal rage ? The answer might be in the cosplay group where she was the event scheduler.

This was just weeks after a busy Christmas season. I think that’s a time period to concentrate on. They also belonged to a Harry Potter group. Anyone have any information about their participation in that group?

 

[Cryptic]

So I ask myself, where was EB a decision maker? Where would her name and identity be associated with a decision that could lead to such personal rage ?

The answer might be in the cosplay group where she was the event scheduler.

They also belonged to a Harry Potter group. Anyone have any information about their participation in that group?

Very well said.

I would add "Family" to the list of instances where the victim could have played a key role in a personal decision.

Wow, I did not know of the additional group. It could well share the characteristics of the cos play group in which it could attract a disproportionate number of people who come to view the group as their sole source of self esteem, social status, and friendships.

 

[BaffleMe]

We’ve convinced ourselves multiple times in this thread that the shooter must have have had a great deal of knowledge to plan so precisely. But the more I look, the more I don’t see a precise plan. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if the plan fell apart because he knew nothing about the garage sale and didn’t expect to find Elizabeth outside in the driveway.

Is it possible that the shooter really only knew where Elizabeth lived and a window of opportunity after her husband would have left for work? On any other Friday would the husband leave earlier than Elizabeth? Was the plan to walk right up, knock on the door and kill her in her home?

Did he plan to park where he did so that Elizabeth wouldn’t see or recognize the truck as she opened the door? Seems like an odd choice to park there otherwise. Not a clean exit either... almost looks rattled, maybe a sense of panic when the plan didn’t go down the way he thought it would.

And finally, four shots from a large caliber handgun outside, in the open and in plain view, in a relatively quiet part of town? Was that part of a plan to get away unnoticed?

I’m starting to think the disguise was intended to conceal his identity from possible witnesses as he walked up to the house and then back to his truck. Had he simply walked up and walked back the only description would have been of a woman.

Four LOUD shots. That's pretty brazen. A silencer would have been smarter. This killer was 'on a mission.'

 

[iamnotagolem]

According to this article: greed, lust, and pursuit of power are the motives for murder.

Why do people become killers? There are only three reasons -- Here they are

Did someone benefit financially from Liz’s death? Did she have life insurance? Did someone get a promotion that would have gone to Liz?

We’re Liz or Sergio having an affair? Did someone have an obsession with either of them?

The power one seems least likely, unless she was some leader in their cosplay world.

 

[JnRyan]

I'm going to speak from just my experience. I've been involved with cosplay for a different fandom (one with British wizards) but I have had a few close friends who have/do participate in the Star Wars fandom. This usually includes stuff like waiting for days at a time on premier lines in tents wearing costumes and participating at meetups. Cosplay in itself isn't a competitive game. Vampire the Masquerade was/is more of a competitive game along the lines of Dungeons and Dragons. VtM can involve intense roleplay and LARPing (I've headed out to the forest for that) where you try to strategically eliminate other players and DnD is more strategy around a table but is mostly cooperative gameplay.

The 501st Legion (the group that Elizabeth belonged to) is known to take part in a lot of charity functions. You can even request them to appear at events. At Comic conventions, they will show up in custom handmade costumes and it's quite a sight to behold. They'll schedule meetups and arrive in procession/formation and you can pose with them and photograph them. They don't break character during these appearances and it's quite an experience. Side note: The 501st is only "bad guys". The 501st Legion is Vader's army. I suggest looking them up on youtube to see how they put on a show!

As for what can bee seen as the competitive part: The 501st Legion is seen by some as an extremely elite group with strict rules (because it kind of is). Wearing a store-bought stormtrooper costume is definitely a no-no and you need to be able to be willing to coordinate with others and participate in events. The group requires membership and you need to be approved. If someone knows - please correct me if I am wrong - I haven't seen mention of Elizabeth being one of the higher-ups in the 501st. I don't know if she had a rank. If she did and she was one of the people to decided who can and can't join the group - I can see that being upsetting. I have always figured that avenue would have been explored since she most likely wouldn't have been the only one who participated in those decisions and wouldn't have been the only one aware. Another scenario I could see leading up to this tragic event would be someone getting kicked out of the group for infractions. I assume this would also have been explored since the group keeps records and would know active/inactive memberships. Of course, there is always the chance of being approached by someone unknown to anyone in the 501st - a complete outlier - who didn't contact the group through the group's website and didn't follow application protocol. This scenario has the possibility of no one else knowing this person. I.E: Elizabeth is approached at an event by a person who asks "hey can I join your group? Elizabeth asks them if they had a costume and/or lets them know they needed to apply to the local chapter online and that answer is unacceptable to the person.

Fandoms are known to be... intense. There is no shortage of drama. I have too many stories but I have also made life-long friendships through the fandom I was in (4/5 of my brides-people including my flower-bearer were through the fandom). If you want some reading and examples check out FandomWank.

I'm sorry this was completely rambly but hopefully, I can provide at least a little bit of insight to the 501st Legion and fandoms in general.

Interesting viewpoint. I vaguely knew of the existence of these groups but I didn't know of anyone in them or if they are even in my area. The closest I've come to anything like this is some co-workers who are 'reenactors'. Some reenact Civil War battles and some Revolutionary or War of 1812 battles. I do know they made their own clothing, and used Pennsylvania long rifles or muskets that were working replicas. There is also the cowboy competitions where the competitors use single action handguns and rifles of that period. But the reenactor's seem to be a tight knit group with little competition within the group. This cosplay stuff is still very new to me.

I'm not entirely in the camp of those that believe there is a direct connection to Elizabeth's 501st Legion. But I don't rule it out either.

 

[BaffleMe]

I feel the same way about this possibility. Even the driving by the night before could all be part of that.

Maybe driving by the night before was a practice run?!

 

[JnRyan]

Four LOUD shots. That's pretty brazen. A silencer would have been smarter. This killer was 'on a mission.'

This was apparently a revolver since LE stated that there were no spent casings left at the scene. I find a revolver harder to fit a sound suppressor on than a semi-automatic handgun and less effective than one on a semi-automatic. (The actual term for them is a 'sound suppressor', since they really don't silence a medium or large caliber gun like they show in the movies.) Since the barrel of a semi-auto can be removed, one can replace it with a threaded barrel to attach a suppressor and this isn't possible with the fixed barrel of a revolver. There are or used to be YouTube videos that showed how to make a homemade suppressor out of PVC pipe, but these really only work well on a .22 caliber handgun. On a revolver of this caliber the sound would still have been noticeable to those most likely to see what happened, like her immediate neighbors.

 

[oceanstarryeyes]

I’m sure this was probably discussed or mentioned somewhere upthread.
Did Elizabeth have life insurance policies?

 

[JnRyan]

Him and Elizabeth worked for the same company, Rosen Group. A pipeline data inspection company.

He didn't make it to work. A neighbor called him and he turned around.

Him and her father are still very close, and I think that speaks for something. I never got the impression he was responsible for this. I feel like the killer was acting on a perceived wrong doing.

Well, this certainly shoots down my theory that it was work related as I doubt such a killer would target her and leave the husband alone. I knew from some articles that Elizabeth was a 'data recorder' for a pipeline inspection company, but I didn't know the husband worked for the same company.

 

[JnRyan]

Didn't hear any voices...

I thought I heard some voices but only after listening multiple times. (Am I REALLY hearing voices or is my imagination kicking in since others say they heard voices? I can't say.) What little I thought I did hear I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman and I certainly couldn't make out any words. The only thing I'm certain of is Elizabeth's scream after the first shot or two.

 

[iamnotagolem]

I’m sure this was probably discussed or mentioned somewhere upthread.
Did Elizabeth have life insurance policies?

I don’t ever remember reading specifically whether she did or not but I’m very interested in the answer.

I’m also interested to know the overall financial situation here. They were leaving on vacation two days after the garage sale, that they were having to raise money for the trip. Was there poor planning involved when they scheduled the trip? It seems if you’re selling belongings two days before a vacation maybe it’s not a financially wise choice?

 

[SuziQ]

Four LOUD shots. That's pretty brazen. A silencer would have been smarter. This killer was 'on a mission.'

And risky. A neighbor could have stepped out to go to work, go running, walk the dog. Thinking about that, maybe that was the reason for the disguise. For some reason the car wasn't a concern. They drove by before, during, and after. And yet it can't be found.