Nearly three years after a grandfather was gunned down in the front hallway of his home during a birthday party gone wrong, Houston police have arrested a suspect. Joshua Rodriguez, 20, was booked into Harris County Jail Monday and charged with murder in the December 2023 shooting death of 67-year-old Filiberto Puente, who friends and family called Gilbert.
According to City of Houston News, HPD patrol officers responded to a shooting at Puente's residence on Juliabora Street at about 1:20 a.m. on December 17, 2023, and found him unresponsive in the living room with multiple gunshot wounds. Houston Fire Department paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. A female juvenile was also struck, suffering a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to the leg; she was taken to an area hospital, treated and later released.
Puente had gathered family and friends at his Southeast Houston home to celebrate his grandson's 18th birthday, according to Click2Houston. The outlet reported that the party's address had been shared publicly on social media, drawing uninvited strangers to the home. Puente reportedly saw the number of people on his camera system and later showed up at the home, and gunfire soon riddled the house, mailbox, doors, windows and parked cars, with security footage capturing intense muzzle flashes outside the residence.
A Fight That Turned Into Gunfire
City of Houston News states that a large group of people had gathered for the birthday celebration when several attendees got into a physical fight. That altercation escalated into a shooting that left two people wounded — Puente, who was struck in the torso and later died, and the young girl, who was hit in the foot as the gunfire spread through the property, per the earlier Click2Houston account.
The property at 8048 Juliabora Street is a single-family home built in 1970, sitting in Southeast Houston's 77017 ZIP code, according to real estate records from Zillow. In the days after the shooting, Puente's daughter started a GoFundMe campaign to cover funeral expenses, describing her father as the pillar of their family, according to the fundraiser's page.
Case Assigned to 487th Criminal District Court
Investigators developed Rodriguez as a suspect over the course of the long-running homicide investigation, and HPD's Eastside Patrol Division Crime Suppression Team arrested him this past Monday, city officials say. He was charged with murder for his role in the fatal shooting and booked into Harris County Jail, with the case now assigned to Harris County's 487th Criminal District Court, presided over by Judge Stacy Allen Barrow, according to court filings.
Under Texas Penal Code Section 19.02, murder is a first-degree felony punishable by 5 to 99 years or life in prison, along with a fine of up to $10,000, per FindLaw. The incident carries HPD reference number 178840223; the original news release was first issued on December 18, 2023, and was updated this week following Rodriguez's arrest.
A Pattern Houston Police Have Flagged Before
The Juliabora Street shooting fits a pattern Houston-area law enforcement has warned about repeatedly — house parties advertised openly on social media drawing uninvited crowds that turn violent, as KHOU reported earlier this year. Citywide, homicides in Houston fell by roughly 9% between 2023 and 2024, continuing a multi-year decline from 473 homicides in 2021, according to Major Cities Chiefs Association data reported by Axios. Still, for Puente's family, the citywide trend offers little comfort after a case that took HPD Homicide Division detectives nearly three years to close.
