Detectives began with two dead apartment workers and no reported eyewitness before identifying a tenant and reconstructing an alleged lease dispute.
HOUSTON, Texas — When officers entered the leasing office of the Park at Woodlake apartments on Sept. 3, they found two employees dead and no witness who had reported seeing the attack. Within about a day, Houston police had arrested tenant Derrick Duane Jackson, and later court proceedings outlined surveillance footage, his statement to detectives and evidence recovered from a hotel room.
The pace of the investigation is central to understanding how the case developed. Police were initially responding to a scene discovered after the violence was over. Rosa Linda Ybarra, 67, and Felix Antonio Jimenez Macz, 47, had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Houston Police Department. A maintenance worker and a resident who had gone to the office to pay rent found them, local reporting said. By then, whoever had carried out the attack had left. Police publicly said they did not consider the deaths a murder-suicide and believed another person was involved, but they did not immediately release a suspect description.
Officers were called at about 6:45 p.m. to the apartment complex at 9545 Ella Lee Lane in west Houston. Houston Fire Department paramedics pronounced Ybarra and Jimenez Macz dead at the scene. The initial public account was spare: two employees were dead, no one had apparently witnessed the shootings and homicide detectives were examining video and interviewing possible witnesses. That meant the early investigation depended less on an eyewitness identification than on records, physical evidence and a reconstruction of who had entered and left the office before the victims were found.
Surveillance video soon became one piece of that reconstruction. The Houston Chronicle later reported that footage showed a man entering the leasing office at about 5:30 p.m. and leaving about 12 minutes later. Prosecutors said Jackson eventually acknowledged that he was the person seen on the recording. The timing helped investigators focus on a period well before police arrived. It also offered a contrast with the discovery of the victims more than an hour later, when a maintenance employee and tenant entered the office. The public reporting does not establish that the video itself captured every act alleged by prosecutors, and authorities have not released the complete recording in the sources reviewed here.
Police then identified Jackson as a possible suspect and arrested him Sept. 4, according to the department. Officers from Midwest Patrol and the Patrol Support Unit made the arrest, after which Jackson provided a statement to homicide detectives. Houston police said he was subsequently charged and booked into the Harris County Jail. Later accounts placed his arrest at a hotel after he had left the apartment complex. ABC13 reported that a pistol and pocketknife were recovered from the hotel room. The Houston Chronicle said authorities also recovered shell casings there that were linked to the shooting. Those details became part of the prosecution’s broader evidentiary account.
A magistrate order described in Law&Crime added another layer, saying that forensic evidence had been recovered from Jackson’s motel room and referring to a confession concerning the two leasing employees. The exact contents and testing of every recovered item have not been publicly laid out in the reports reviewed here. The distinction matters because police findings, prosecutor statements and court filings can describe evidence before a jury has evaluated it. At this stage, they show how authorities say they connected Jackson to the crime scene and aftermath, not a final legal determination that every allegation is proven.
The alleged reason for Jackson’s visit to the leasing office became public only after investigators had already made the arrest. At a subsequent court appearance, prosecutors said Jackson had gone to the office because he disagreed with the terms of a 14-month lease. He allegedly argued with Jimenez Macz. Court reporting said Jackson told authorities he became upset when Jimenez Macz began speaking in “Spanglish.” Ybarra then referred to Jackson having signed the lease, according to the hearing account. Prosecutors said Jackson claimed that exchange caused him to “snap.” The exact contractual dispute has not been fully explained in the public reporting, and the statements attributed to Jackson remain part of the prosecution’s case.
Prosecutors allege that the argument was followed by a rapid sequence of violence. The later court account said Jackson shot Ybarra, then fired at Jimenez Macz as the man tried to escape. Authorities further allege Jimenez Macz was shot again and stabbed. Earlier charging reports had already said Jackson was accused of shooting Ybarra and both shooting and stabbing Jimenez Macz during the same criminal episode. Police, in their public release, limited their description to the fact that both victims had multiple gunshot wounds. The more detailed description came through court reporting and should be understood as an allegation that has not yet been resolved at trial.
By the time those details became public, the investigation had moved from an unidentified third person to a named defendant facing a capital charge. Houston police identify Jackson as 53. Some early reports based on court records listed him as 48, but the department’s official release and later local coverage used 53. Police said he was charged with capital murder in the 228th Criminal District Court. A judge later set bond at $1 million, according to ABC13 and the Houston Chronicle. Bond decisions govern pretrial release and do not determine whether a defendant is guilty.
The investigation also transformed what was known about the victims. At first, police described only a 67-year-old woman and a 47-year-old man believed to work at the complex. Court records later identified them as Ybarra and Jimenez Macz. Ybarra’s relatives subsequently spoke publicly about her life outside the office. They said she had previously provided child care, transported neighborhood children and helped families who needed after-school support. Family accounts said she also cared for an adult son with a disability and was working toward adopting a young foster child. A fundraiser described her as a longtime Oak Forest resident and Waltrip High School graduate.
Publicly available reporting has offered much less personal information about Jimenez Macz. He is identified in police and court-related reports as a 47-year-old apartment employee who prosecutors say was involved in the lease discussion before the killings. No comparably detailed family profile was located in the sources reviewed for this article. That information gap limits what can responsibly be said about him without speculation, even though his death is equally part of the capital murder case.
What began as a scene with no reported eyewitness has become a case built around records, video, physical evidence and Jackson’s alleged statements to investigators. Whether those pieces establish the prosecution’s account beyond a reasonable doubt has not been decided. Jackson remains accused in the deaths of Ybarra and Jimenez Macz, and the available reporting does not show that a trial has produced a verdict.
Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.