Texas man kills senior citizen with shovel after verbal disturbance ‘escalated,’ authorities say

A man is accused of getting into a fight with a senior citizen and fatally attacking him with a shovel, authorities said.

On June 12 just before midnight, Miguel Anthony Gonzales, 31, allegedly struck the elderly man multiple times with the tool in Bexar County. The victim appeared to have sustained blunt-force-trauma injuries to his head and upper torso during the assault, the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office said.

“Investigators discovered a shovel nearby with blood on it — later determined to be the murder weapon,” according to the sheriff’s office.

Deputies spoke with a witness who saw the incident. “Luckily,” the sheriff’s office said, “the witness was able to escape the scene before being harmed herself.”

Gonzales also fled, but deputies located him after receiving a call about a suspicious person. Law enforcement had to use a taser on the murder suspect when a struggle broke out while attempting to arrest him.

According to authorities, Gonzales and the victim got into a “verbal disturbance” that “escalated into Gonzales hitting the elderly male with a shovel.” During questioning, he allegedly confessed to killing the man.

Gonzales, who had two outstanding warrants at the time, was charged with murder. A judge set his bail at $1 million, KSAT-TV reported.