Man Accused of Killing Wife Had Ties to Mexican State Police

ATASCOCITA, TX -- A man who is accused of killing his wife on Monday and taking off with their 12-year old son, was a former high ranking police official in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas from 2005 to 2010.

According to a Houston Chronicle report, Rogelio Romero Flores, 55, who was arrested on Monday in Victoria and is being held there awaiting extradition back to Harris County, was the head of police operations for the state of Tamaulipas.

"A lot of these corrupt police officers and politicians, if they fall in line with one cartel, they can be killed by a rival cartel to eliminate any protection they provide," said Mike Vigil, a retired chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "It is a tight-rope they have to walk, a very precarious tightrope."

On Monday, Flores called family members and told them he’d shot his wife and was taking their son to Mexico.

Family members called police, who went to the home on Fire Sage Drive in the Laurel Place subdivision, where they found Silvia Munoz Vazquez, 35, shot to death.

The couple had a history of arguments loud enough for neighbors to hear, Harris County Sheriff’s Deputy Thomas Gilliland told the Houston Chronicle,.

However, authorities said there was no record of family violence.

Flores was driving Cadillac SUV, and heading south along Interstate 69, when Victoria County deputies stopped him.

Deputies surrounded Flores and ordered him out the ground, and he was taken in without any harm to deputies or his son.

While Flores remains in custody, his wife's family back in Tamaulipas was working Wednesday on getting her body back to Mexico.

"This is the most difficult thing a person can live through," said her mother, who is also named Silvia Vasquez.

Flores is expected back in Harris County on Friday.

Image via Victoria County Sheriff's Office