Texas AMBER Alert update: Man arrested in double murder case

A man in Austin has been arrested, accused of being involved in two murders on October 14 and kidnapping three children who were announced as missing through an AMBER alert, according to the city of Austin’s press release.

Sherles Gregorio Machado-Hernandez, 31, was taken into custody by the Austin Police Department and has been accused of killing a man and a woman who have not been named, who were found deceased in a vehicle.

An AMBER alert for the deceased woman’s three children, Ninel Anseume Sayas, 10, Abraham Anseume, 4, and Elsi Anseume, 2, was issued by the authorities after they were unaccounted for.

Prior to their disappearance, the children had been last seen on October 13 and Machado-Hernandez was named as a suspect.

The children were found safe a few hours later on October 14, and no weapons were recovered.

Newsweek reached out to the Austin Police Department for comment via a form on their website outside of business hours.

The unnamed deceased man and woman had apparent gunshot wounds when they were discovered by police.

At an afternoon briefing near the crime scene, police corporal Jose Mendez said that the victims were in their early twenties and “had been there for quite some time,” according to the Austin-American Statesman.

Following his arrest, Machado-Hernandez was booked into Travis County Jail. Any relationship with the two victims and the three children is unknown.

According to the city of Austin’s open data portal, there have been 40 murders reported this year, and 51 reported the previous year.

In Texas last year, of the 48,008 missing person’s reports, 35,181 of those were missing children’s reports, according to Texas Center for the Missing.

The 2022 AMBER alert report found that 17 percent of all AMBER alerts issued in the U.S. were from Texas.

The number of AMBER alerts issued in Texas increased last year to 26 percent of all those issued nationally, followed by North Carolina at 9 percent, according to the 2023 AMBER alert report.

Last year’s report also found that females were abducted more often than males, 56 percent to 44 percent, and children under five made up 55 percent of AMBER alerts issued in 2023.

The report also found that children were most often abducted by their own fathers, an unknown individual, or their mothers, and the most common reason for abduction was related to custody in terms of domestic issues.

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