AUSTIN, Texas — A quiet holiday in Austin was interrupted by sudden tragedy. The death of a 30-year-old man on Thanksgiving Day three years ago is still a mystery today.
"I love you ma, I love you," George Michael Lopez said on a Ring camera video.
Little did Rosa Lopez know, that'd be the last time she would ever hear her son's voice again.
“I think back now and it's like I should have hugged him a little longer. It's just like he was saying goodbye in the permanent kind of way. Like he knew he wasn't coming back,” Rosa Lopez said.
The Ring video was recorded hours before George Michael Lopez was shot and killed.
It was Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25, 2021. George Michael Lopez and his girlfriend were in East Austin having Thanksgiving dinner with his mom. After dinner, they left again to meet up with other family.
“They were getting the plates ready to serve but they didn't have any drinks. And he volunteered. He went out to the store and they never saw him again,” Rosa Lopez said.
At 7:55 pm, a photo of George Michael Lopez placed him at a convenience store.
"We see the victim's vehicle leaving the intersection of Burton and Oltorf at approximately 9:25,” Austin Police Department Detective Christophe Wood said.
Wood believes that was where George Michael Lopez was shot. “And for whatever reason he fled the scene, possibly to seek help,” he said.
Ten minutes later, at 9:35 pm, police received a 911 call about a 2012 Buick Lacrosse.
"There was a reckless driving call with a sedan driving northbound on the North I-35 proper. The vehicle was swerving and collided with a concrete barrier,” Wood said.
The video then shows George Michael Lopez's car slowly moving near the intersection of Lambie and northbound I-35 Frontage Road before crashing into a U.S. postal service mailbox. EMS rushed to the scene.
“When they got to the vehicle, they noticed that the driver had multiple gunshot wounds,” Wood said.
Rosa Lopez says her son had a heart of gold and was liked by many. She also admits he rubbed some people the wrong way and was doing things he shouldn't have been involved in.
"He wasn't staying at home. He was out and about and mainly he was out in the streets a lot. I know he stayed in a lot of the homeless camps with certain people that he got along with,” she said.
“George had a way of just making everybody smile and laugh. He would make sure that he when he left, he left them smiling. He didn't like seeing anybody sad at all.”
His family said weeks before his murder, George Michael Lopez was shot at but wasn't hit, which left him with an uneasy feeling. His family felt he was sad, which wasn't like him.
Detectives said during the 3-month period of the murder, they were called out many times to that same intersection of Burton Drive and East Oltorf Street. Some of the calls they responded to included three shootings, one stabbing and eight reports of drug-related activities.
If you have any information on this case, call Crime Stoppers at 512-472-8477.