SAN ANTONIO – The family of Manuel Rios, 52, said they are just as baffled as police by his murder Monday as he had been waiting for a bus outside his East Side apartment complex in the 4600 block of Dietrich Road.
“No money was taken, nothing,” said his eldest daughter Aurora Aguilera. “It’s odd. It doesn’t make sense.”
She and other members of the family described Rios as a hard worker. They said when he was killed he was going to his early morning job at an International House of Pancakes on the North Side. They also said over the years, he’d delivered newspapers and was a custodian at the Alamodome.
“My dad had no enemies. I knew he never had enemies,” his son, Manuel Jr., said.
He said, in fact, that his dad was his best friend.
“He was the sweetest person you’d ever meet,” his son said.
His daughter said that lately, however, her father had grown concerned about the fights and “other drama” at the apartment complex where he lived with his son.
A phone call from a family member had awakened Rios’ son, telling him a body was found in a grassy area below his apartment. The victim’s son said when he peeked out the window, he recognized his father’s work uniform beneath the yellow tarp covering his body.
The younger Rios said he asked a police officer, “Does that man have a red IHOP shirt?”
He said the officer confirmed it.
The son said he’s tortured by the thought that his father may have tried to flee his attacker.
“Just the way his body was turned, like he was trying to go up the stairs for me to help him, and I couldn’t,” Rios said.
Victoria Aguilera, the victim’s ex-wife said, “If they were man enough to shoot him in the back, they should be man enough to step up and do the time.”
She, and her children, said that Rios' violent death was cowardly and pathetic.
Aguilera said, “I feel sorry for them. They have to answer to God at the end.”
In thanks for his years of community service at events such as National Night Out, his wife said she urges anyone with information about the murder to contact San Antonio police or call Crime Stoppers at 210-224-STOP.