A decomposed body showing gunshot wounds was discovered near a water basin on San Antonio's Northwest Side Friday evening, after a person out fishing in the area stumbled onto the remains around 7:50 p.m. Shell casings were found scattered near the body, close to the intersection of Wurzbach Parkway and West Avenue, and the deceased remains unidentified.
The discovery was first reported by WOAI, whose report on the scene noted that the person who found the body was fishing through the area near the water basin when they came upon the remains. Investigators have not released details on how long the body may have been there or the identity of the victim, leaving the circumstances of the death still very much unresolved.
A Familiar and Troubled Stretch of North Side Trail
The stretch of Wurzbach Parkway near West Avenue has seen violence before. Just last month, San Antonio Police responded to a shooting along Blanco Road near Wurzbach Parkway, near the east entrance of Phil Hardberger Park, where a gunman shot a juvenile and a man in his 20s before fleeing, according to Hoodline's earlier coverage. Both victims in that case were unarmed, and the gunman remained at large.
The area's history stretches back further still. In October 2024, a park police officer patrolling the North Salado Creek Greenway trail system behind Walker Ranch Park — also located off West Avenue near Wurzbach Parkway — discovered a man's body wrapped in a tarp on an abandoned golf cart, as reported by KENS 5. The Bexar County Medical Examiner later identified that victim as 39-year-old Pete Hosea Castillo in what became an active homicide investigation. And back in June 2017, News Radio 1200 WOAI reported that police responded to a critical shooting at the Indian Hollow Apartments at West Avenue and Wurzbach Parkway, where a resident shot a man in the chest after a late-night argument.
Greenways and Drainage Basins Complicate Investigations
Wurzbach Parkway is a major east-west urban arterial thoroughfare managed by the Texas Department of Transportation, spanning northern San Antonio and intersecting major roads like West Avenue and Blanco Road while running adjacent to public drainage basins and greenway trails. Those secluded, vegetated corridors — including the North Salado Creek Greenway and Walker Ranch Park — have historically been scenes of outdoor body discoveries and death investigations.
This is not the only recent case of a decomposed body turning up in the region. In September 2026, Bexar County Sheriff's deputies opened a suspicious death investigation after a passerby found a decomposed body showing evident trauma along a private road off New Sulfur Springs Road in southeast Bexar County, where investigators believed the victim had been killed elsewhere and dumped, according to KENS 5. In August, San Antonio Police discovered the heavily decomposed body of a man inside the attic of a vacant, fire-damaged motel off Interstate 35 on the city's Northeast Side, a structure known as a hangout for unhoused residents, after unhoused individuals alerted a nearby worker.
Identification Could Take Weeks Given Decomposition
Because the remains found near Wurzbach Parkway are decomposed, identifying the victim is expected to rely on the same forensic tools used across the region. Under Texas state standards and Bexar County Medical Examiner procedures, forensic identification of unidentified decedents relies on performing dental radiographs, collecting fingerprints, and conducting DNA comparisons when physical decomposition prevents visual identification. Bexar County operates the regional medical examiner facility responsible for that work.
The find comes even as San Antonio's overall homicide numbers have been trending downward. The Major Cities Chiefs Association's 2026 year-end survey recorded 106 homicides in San Antonio for calendar year 2025, down from 126 in 2024. A July 2026 report from the San Antonio Report found that homicides fell 8% during the first half of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, continuing a multi-year drop that has pushed the city's homicide rate 12% below pre-pandemic levels; University of Texas at San Antonio criminologists separately documented an 18.5% drop in citywide homicides for 2025.
That downward trend has not been perfectly steady, however. Axios reported in May 2026 that San Antonio recorded an increase in homicides during the first quarter of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, briefly interrupting the broader multi-year decline before annual figures resumed their downward trajectory.
For now, the identity of the person found near Wurzbach Parkway remains unknown, and no arrests have been reported. Anyone with information is typically encouraged by San Antonio Police to come forward as the investigation continues.
