Texas man charged with murder after he shot his girlfriend for having an abortion in another state, police say
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- Police arrested Harold Thompson on suspicion of killing Gabriella Gonzalez in a confrontation in Dallas.
- She had traveled to Colorado for an abortion, which police said her boyfriend objected to.
- Texas has some of the strictest abortion laws in the country.
A Texas man is suspected of shooting and killing his girlfriend after he found out she went to get an abortion in another state, police said.
Police arrested Harold Thompson, 22, on suspicion of killing 26-year-old Gabriella Gonzalez in a confrontation in a Dallas parking lot on Wednesday, said police, after discovering she had returned from getting an abortion in Colorado the night before, per the Associated Press.
"It is believed that the suspect was the father of the child," the affidavit said, per AP. The suspect did not want Gonzalez to get an abortion, it said.
Surveillance footage shows Thompson trying to put Gonzalez in a chokehold in the parking lot, which she shrugs off, police said.
Thompson then pulled out a gun, shot Gonzalez in the head, and then shot her multiple times after she fell to the ground, according to the affidavit seen by AP.
Texas has some of the strictest abortion laws in the country.
The state had already effectively banned abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy in 2021. Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion was made illegal in most cases except in cases of a medical emergency.
After many states introduced abortion restrictions post-Roe, many women have chosen to cross state lines to access them.
Thompson was later arrested and is being held in the Dallas County Jail on a murder charge, AP reported.
The victim's sister was at the scene and heard the shooting, and another witness saw Thompson try to choke Gonzalez but didn't have her cell phone, so she could not call the police, police said.
Thompson had in March been charged with the assault of a family member, who accused him of choking her and said he "beat her up multiple times throughout the entirety of their relationship."
The March affidavit does not name Gonzalez as the victim, but Thompson told police that the woman who accused him of assault was pregnant with his child then.
She also "reiterated that she is scared of the suspect because he had threatened to harm her family and her children," per the affidavit, AP reported.