A man accused of fatally shooting an El Paso lawyer and injuring her husband was arrested this week after chasing the couple into his home, according to what he said was an effort to root out “satanic activities,” including abortions by “magic” in a nearby park. .
Police now arrest Joseph Angel Alvarez, 38, in El Paso County Jail on $ 2.5 million bail after a SWAT team and detectives arrested him outside his workplace for a Pope John’s Pizza, confirmed this Wednesday in a press release.
Alvarez’s arrest came in connection with the shooting of lawyers Georgette Kaufmann, 50, and Daniel Kaufmann, 47, according to El Paso police department officials. According to an obituary, Georgette worked for seven years at the Texas Attorney General’s Office as an assistant attorney general in the Child Care Division in El Paso for seven years.
On the evening of November 14 last year, officers responded to a shooting call and found Daniel Kaufmann suffering from gunshot wounds at a nearby residence. After a search of the area, police discovered his wife’s body.
According to court documents obtained by the The Step Times, Alvarez said she was “executing and exterminating pro-election Jewish worshipers of Satan” when she went down to the Kaufmanns’ house, ambushing Georgette Kaufmann before attempting to enter the house and shoot her husband.
Alvarez allegedly aimed at a group of four houses that included Kaufman’s for their proximity to a local park. Police said in an affidavit that the suspect committed the crimes based on his belief that the four houses were involved in “satanic activities” associated with Memorial Park.
After the murder, police investigators said they discovered a message Alvarez had apparently written to a U.S. military email address describing extremist beliefs, which included photographs of houses near the park. and images of the roadway of its victims, according to the affidavit, according to KFOX.
Alvarez said in the email that Memorial Park was the location of a “ritualistic satanic ground for performing abortions in the manner of magic,” the media reported. He also allegedly said in the email that he ran the Kaufmanns’ house because he believed they had voted for President Joe Biden and had a “flag and a Trump doll hanging” from Biden. He also called the pro-election people the “Jewish Satanist party,” the media reported.
Police said Alvarez also demanded in the email that people “stop all baby killings,” the The Step Times reported. Police noted that on the night of the alleged murder, another home on the target block had Democratic and LGBTQ posters on the front lawn, according to cell phone data collected by investigators.
Around 7:35 p.m. the night of the attack, police said Alvarez shot Georgette Kaufmann through an independent garage door as she returned home and then tried to open a door to the couple’s home.
According to police, Daniel Kaufmann heard sounds at the door and was allegedly shot by the suspect as he walked to the back door. Alvarez fled the scene, according to police, and Daniel Kaufmann somehow managed to get to a neighbor’s house to dial 911.
Daniel Kaufmann told KFOX that he was shot five times and hit in the head, shoulder and wrist. The shooter failed twice, he said.
Officers who responded later found him injured at the neighbor’s home, police said. His wife’s dead body was found in the garage.
According to the The Step Times, police also identified a Facebook page that allegedly belonged to Alvarez, where he discussed being fired from an airport job. In the affidavit, police wrote that she had been fired after assaulting a co-worker and confronting her as she got out of her car in a manner similar to “how Georgette Kaufmann was approached and killed, getting out of her vehicle and by the driver’s side door. ”