A 16-year-old found unresponsive with a gunshot wound inside an apartment near Ella Boulevard and Kuykendahl was first described by a roommate as having shot himself. Weeks later, that account collapsed. Jose Gregorio Blanco Moreno, 21, was arrested August 12 and charged with murder after investigators concluded the teen could not have fired the fatal shot himself.
Deputies were called to the apartment on July 27 after Jhowel Rafael Hernandez Castro, who is the cousin of Blanco Moreno's dating partner, was found with a gunshot wound, according to ABC13 Houston. Blanco Moreno was living with four other people at the apartment at the time. He told investigators he did not hear the gunshot and was awakened by the victim, and said he performed unsuccessful CPR before he woke a roommate.
But that version of events was not the only one he gave. Per a search warrant cited in the station's report, Blanco Moreno changed his story while speaking with detectives, at one point claiming the gunshot awakened him and that he found the teen holding his own gun, and separately claiming that Hernandez Castro shot himself. He also told investigators he unloaded the gun afterward and hid it in a kitchen cabinet.
Forensics Undercut the Suicide Claim
Investigators could not find gunshot residue on the teen's body and determined the shot had come from long range, the same report notes. At Blanco Moreno's probable cause hearing on August 13, a hearing officer said the bullet's angle made it essentially impossible for the victim to have shot himself.
That forensic reasoning tracks with standard investigative practice. Gunshot residue testing generally cannot settle whether a shooting was self-inflicted or a homicide, since residue is expelled mainly from the muzzle onto anyone nearby and any particles on a person's hands dissipate within about 45 minutes, according to guidance from the Texas District & County Attorneys Association. Medical examiners instead lean on wound characteristics, muzzle-to-target distance, and bullet trajectory to distinguish the two, per research published on PMC.
Immigration Status and Custody
Blanco Moreno is a Venezuelan national who is in the country illegally, per ICE. Border Patrol arrested him in December 2023, and he was released with a notice to appear in immigration court, again per ICE. A judge ordered his removal in May 2024, but Blanco Moreno did not appear in immigration court and was not apprehended again until his August 12 murder arrest, according to the same account.
He was booked into the Harris County Jail on $500,000 bond, and ICE has placed a hold on him, meaning he will be taken into federal custody if he is released from jail on the state charge. Harris County Jail holds more inmates with active ICE detainers than any other county jail in Texas, averaging nearly 1,300 per month this spring, according to The Texas Signal. Sheriff Ed Gonzalez ended the department's dedicated 287(g) task force partnership with federal immigration authorities in 2017, but the sheriff's office still honors voluntary 48-hour ICE detainer requests for booked inmates, the outlet reports.
What Blanco Moreno Faces in Court
Under Texas Penal Code Section 19.02, murder is a first-degree felony carrying a punishment range of 5 to 99 years or life in prison, along with a fine of up to $10,000, according to the L&L Law Group. Texas law does allow murder defendants to raise a sudden passion affirmative defense at sentencing, which, if proven, can reduce the charge to a second-degree felony carrying 2 to 20 years, per the Saputo Toufexis firm. It remains an open question whether that defense will factor into Blanco Moreno's case.
The exact motive behind the shooting has not been disclosed, and it is unclear what additional ballistics evidence investigators may have recovered. This is at least the third fatal apartment shooting in mid-2026 along the Ella Boulevard and Kuykendahl Road corridor in north Harris County, following a June shooting that killed a man in his early 20s in the 14300 block, reported by Click2Houston, and a deadly playground shooting on the 13900 block the following month.
