Have You Seen Him? $10K Reward Offered In Pasadena Man's Murder

PASADENA, TX — Who killed Nick Bautista? That's the question homicide investigators in the Pasadena Police Department have been asking since October 2018, when Bautista was gunned down in broad daylight.

On Thursday, Pasadena Police identified a man named Oscar Garcia as the man who took Bautista's life on an October afternoon, and said this killing is yet another case of mistaken identity.

"Our life as a family will never be the same," said Delia Bautista, Nicholas Bautista's mother. "There will always be somebody missing, and that is our Nicholas."

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon on Oct. 28 when police got the call about a shooting in the 200 block of Wafer Street. When officers for there, they found Bautista laying on a sidewalk in front his home with a gaping bullet wound in his upper back.

Witnesses told police that Bautista, 37, was outside with his girlfriend, Elizabeth Patlan, when a man that police identified as Garcia, drove up in a two-toned Ford F-150 pickup, and got out of his vehicle carrying a shotgun. Officials said Garcia followed Bautista home, believing he'd stolen from him.

Witnesses said Garcia was angry when he confronted Bautista and yelled at him in Spanish, but Bautista didn't understand him and Patlan had to translate.

Patlan said she pleaded with Garcia, and tried to convince him that Bautista wasn't the person he was looking for, but he just became became angrier.

"From that point, it just went down hill," Patlan said.

When Bautista turned to call police on his cell phone, Garcia allegedly fired a shotgun blast into his back, and fled the scene in his pickup.

EMS rushed Bautista to Bayshore Medical Center where he died.

"In most cases, we don't know who the suspect is," said Andy Kahan, Crime Stoppers victim's services advocate. "In this case, we know who the suspect is..."

Officials believe Garcia got on a bus on Nov. 5, and traveled south. Investigators said they believe Garcia is somewhere in the Rio Grande Valley, possibly in McAllen, Texas, or that he may have crossed into Mexico.

Garcia is a Hispanic man 5-feet-7 to 5-feet-9 inches tall, and weighs between 150 and 170 pounds. He had a beard and was wearing dark pants, a dark gray T-shirt and a baseball cap, according to witnesses. He was last seen driving away in a 4-door two-toned black and tan Ford F-150, police said.

Crime Stoppers is offering a reward of up to $10,000 for information that leads to an arrest in this case. Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477) or Pasadena Police Detective C. MacGregor at 713-475-7891.

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Image: Pasadena Police

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