Police say they haven’t identified the shooter who killed 24-year-old Franky Garza last week, just one day after he arrived in the city for a fresh start at life.
SAN ANTONIO — Franky Garza had just moved to a new city, hoping to get a fresh start. Then, just one day later, the 24-year-old was shot and killed outside an apartment complex. Now, his family is pleading for answers.
“He just left,” his mother, Erica Garza, said. “Just for another person or persons to rob his life.”
Deputies were called late Wednesday night to an apartment complex in San Antonio, Texas for an “injured sick adult,” the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office reported. The caller said a man was passed out near the door of a residence.
When deputies arrived, they found Franky unresponsive with an apparent gunshot wound to his abdomen. Deputies and medical personnel attempted life-saving measures, but Franky died at the scene.
BCSO said the case is being investigated as a homicide.
Franky’s family said he had moved from Carrizo Springs, Texas to San Antonio on Tuesday, May 5, and was staying with a friend while he looked for his own apartment. He had recently worked for SpartanNash in North Dakota and hoped to find similar work in San Antonio.
His dream, his mother said, was to get his commercial driver’s license, become a truck driver and one day start a business with his father using the family name.
“He wanted to try to get his own apartment and get a job,” Erica said. “As a mom, I was hesitant, but then I said, ‘Alright, that’s fine.’”
Erica said she saw her son in San Antonio the day before he was killed, when she was in town for a doctor’s appointment. She said Franky made sure she hugged him before she left.
“He was like, ‘Make sure you come and give me a hug before you leave,’” Erica said.
The next night, she said, Franky called her shortly after 10 p.m. asking for his sister, Alyssa, who was asleep. About 10 minutes later, Erica said, he called again.
That call became what she described as the worst call of her life.
“He’s like, ‘Mom, can you call [my roommate]? Tell her I’ve been shot,’” Erica recalled. “I thought that he was playing around, because he used to joke with me a lot.”
But then, she said, she heard her son struggling to breathe.
“I was hearing him breathe, like he couldn’t breathe right,” she said. “He was breathing very heavy.”
Erica was about two hours away in Carrizo Springs, trying to keep Franky on the phone while also trying to reach his roommate. Franky’s sister, Alexis Ivy, eventually reached his roommate, who said Franky had gone to the store with a new friend he met the day before and then to another apartment building in the same complex.
Alexis said the roommate first told her Franky was outside and fine, then went to check on him.
“She’s like, ‘Alexis, I can’t find him. He’s not here. I don’t know where he is,’” Alexis said.
Moments later, Alexis said, the roommate called back. She went to the friend’s building and traced Franky outside of a third floor apartment using the sound of his phone ringing.
“She’s like, ‘I found him, I found him, and he’s here,’” Alexis said. “And then that was it. She just said, ‘He’s not responding.’”
Franky’s family was already on their way to San Antonio, trying to find out where he would be taken. Erica said she kept hoping she would arrive and find her son alive.
“In my heart, I kept thinking, ‘No, I’m going to get there. He’s going to be OK,’” she said. “It wasn’t fair that he passed away on the phone with me.”
Erica said Franky was loving, trusting and eager to build a better life. He had talked about moving either to San Antonio or Minnesota, where he had family.
“I was like, ‘Why do you want to leave?’” Erica said. “He’s like, ‘No, I’m just going to try it. It’s a new start.’”
She said her son was a loving and caring person who treated her like a queen. He planned to visit her for Mother’s Day weekend.
“He was supposed to come for the weekend to come and see me, but that didn’t happen,” Erica said.
Franky’s family believes the person he was last seen with may hold the key to unlocking this case.
“That person was the last one that was with my son, and he knows,” Erica said. “He has to know something.”
Erica is asking anyone at the apartment complex who saw or heard anything—or who may have doorbell or surveillance video from that night—to contact investigators
“I want justice for my son,” she said. “Help us, my family. I want to know who did this to my son. He needs justice because he didn’t deserve to die like that.”