‘Small tip’ about dispute over foreign land deal leads to arrest of murder suspect, cops say

A disagreement over a land deal in Mexico led to a murder in Georgia, authorities say.

Officers from the Gwinnett Police Department responded around 12:30 a.m. July 3 to the 200 block of Paden Cove Trail to check on a parked truck. When cops looked inside, they discovered the body of a man, later identified as 39-year-old Guadalupe Garcia-Rodriguez. He had been shot and strangled. His wife had reported him missing two days earlier after he left for work in his truck but never came home.

The victim’s wife, Rosa Quintanilla, told Atlanta NBC affiliate WXIA that once her husband didn’t come home on July 1 and wasn’t answering messages, she called his boss, who said he never showed up to work. She then called the cops.

Neighbors said they noticed the truck on the side of the road but didn’t think much of it.

“For two days, I’ve been passing by, me and my wife,” one neighbor told the outlet. “We were talking about it, but, you know, we figured it just broke down by the side and woke up this morning and hear this all, like, wow.”

Police released photos of a possible suspect walking near Bethesda Church Road near Hidden Drive toward the end of July. On Aug. 8, cops received a tip that Garcia-Rodriguez had gotten into a dispute over land he bought from 38-year-old Mario Rene Lopez-Jolon, the father of his ex-girlfriend. Apparently, Lopez-Jolon wanted the land back.

“That small tip, knowing that he had some type of dispute over land in Mexico, led us to further investigating further interviews,” Gwinnett County Police Cpl. Juan Madiedo told Atlanta Fox affiliate WAGA.

Detectives spoke with the ex-girlfriend and found her father at a hotel in Huntsville, Alabama, where they took him into custody. He’s facing charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.

Lopez-Jolon is in an Alabama jail awaiting extradition back to Georgia.

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