The Texas millionaire murder: Who killed Henry Gutierrez?

SCHERTZ, Texas (WOAI) -- Officials are still searching for the suspect who killed Henry Gutierrez on Christmas Eve more than four years ago.

MORE: Officials still searching for Schertz businessman killer, offering $75,000 reward - WOAI

Jan. 9, 2018:

Henry Gutierrez was a well-respected multimillionaire, and popular with the ladies. In fact no one we talked to could or would say a bad thing about him.

However, hiding in the shadows was someone who wanted Gutierrez dead.

Schertz, Texas, about 25 miles north of San Antonio, is where police are trying to find the person or persons responsible for the murder of a prominent businessman.

Henry Gutierrez, the multimillionaire owner of a trash collection company, a race-car driver and a ladies man, was fatally shot execution-style in his easy chair on Dec. 24, 2015. He was shot in the head, chest and leg.

Henry Gutierrez lived in Schertz, which has been ranked as one of the best places to live in the United States.

"We have a population I think right now of 36,000. I consider it a small community," said Schertz Police Lt. Thad Siwecki. "We're pretty close outside San Antonio, but we don't have a big crime rate here."

Despite his many millions, Gutierrez didn't flaunt his wealth.

"You wouldn't know that he was a multimillionaire if you looked at him, that's for sure," said Miguel Gutierrez, Henry's son. "He's kind of a hippie."

A hippie who made a lot of green from garbage. Gutierrez took over the company after his father died and eventually sold it. Then he started up another trash company with a handshake agreement to partner with his old friend Efrain Gonzalez.

"He started up another one with Gonzalez in the early '90s, and that was a very successful company that was sold in 1997, and I believe that company sold for about six or seven million dollars," said Miguel Gutierrez.

Henry Gutierrez devoted his energies to drag-racing and his other hobby: women.

"My dad, he was an eligible bachelor," said Miguel.

But garbage was in Henry Gutierrez's DNA, so he started up a third trash company called Bexar Waste with his uncle George.

"We were running right at about 55 trucks every day," said George Gutierrez. "It was a multimillion-dollar business."

George says with Bexar Waste, Henry and his buddy Efrain Gonzalez made another handshake agreement -- but not, he says, as partners, but for Gonzalez to provide equipment and maintenance.

Around these parts, Gutierrez was well-respected.

"He was also known very well in the political community in Bexar County, he had done a lot of good things with the city. He always around Christmas time brought things to the different employees at the fire department, police department," said Lt. Siwecki.

But that all came to a bloody end on Christmas Eve 2015. Henry Gutierrez and his uncle George were going to sell Bexar Waste to a multibillion-dollar company.

"Him and I had a meeting that morning at 9 a.m. He didn't show up," George Gutierrez tells Crime Watch Daily.

So George tracked down Henry's son Miguel, the company's vice president.

"For this meeting, there was really no explanation for him to miss it because it was going to be an initial meeting about the sale of the business and how things were going to progress," said Miguel.

Miguel rushed to his dad's house, and what he says he saw shocked him senseless.

"As I looked through the glass pane I could clearly see him in the chair with a plaid blanket over him, and his boots, I could just see his boots sticking out," said Miguel. "Then I saw a shell casing on the floor and I knew that something terrible had happened, and I just kind of collapsed for a second, shouting 'Dad, dad,' and 'No, no.'"

Henry Gutierrez was dead in what looked like an execution-style slaying.

"The blanket would indicate to me normally that someone that was close to him or knew him, would do something like that, so you don't see the face of the person," said Lt. Siwecki. Siwecki suggests Gutierrez was already deceased when the blanket was placed over his head.

Gutierrez's car was missing too, as was a ring his family says he always wore. The crime scene photos show someone ransacked the place.

"We did recover one unknown fingerprint," said Siwecki. "And all the DNA we found in the house came back to Henry. We found Henry's car months later, it was recovered in San Marcos, which is about 20 miles from here, north, and it was recovered in a parking lot of an apartment. We canvassed the apartment building and weren't able to find anything or anybody that's seen anybody there, and we weren't able to get any forensic evidence from the car."

But cops did discover other items missing from Gutierrez's house: some Christmas gift cards.

"Three were taken, and I believe there were five there, Henry routinely gave those out for Christmas as gifts," said Lt. Siwecki. "To me the unusual part about the gift cards is if I was to steal the gift cards, I would take all of them, not necessarily just three."

Cops say a man, possibly a transient, sold the gift cards to three unsuspecting people in Houston.

Cops wonder if the answers would be found closer to home.

"Someone went in and obviously killed Henry for either money or something to do with the business," said Lt. Siwecki.

Do you think Henry Gutierrez was killed by someone he knew?

"Yes, ma'am, I do," Siwecki tells Crime Watch Daily.

Multimillionaire Henry Gutierrez was sitting in his living room, preparing for the holidays, when someone walked into the home and opened fire. Police say the scene appears to be staged to look like a robbery.

Miguel Gutierrez took us back to Henry's house, still as Henry left it.

Schertz, Texas police detectives say the killer trashed the house and stole Christmas gift cards.

"I think the scene was made to look like a burglary instead of an intentional homicide, instead of the intent being to kill Henry that day," said Schertz Police Lt. Thad Siwecki.

Adding to the murder mystery: a strange phone call to Henry's uncle George.

"They called George saying that they know who killed Henry," said Lt. Siwecki. "We were able of course to back-log that phone to see where it came from. It came from a convenience store in Houston. We weren't able to develop anybody or anything from that phone call."

So who are the persons of interest?

"Well of course everyone who was involved with the scene," said Siwecki. "I personally told Miguel that him and his sister are persons of interest for the simple fact that you have a will change, even though they may not benefited directly from it. And Miguel is being cooperative with us, by the way."

That change in the will removed Miguel Gutierrez as the executor. He claims that wasn't a sore spot between him and his dad.

Did Henry change that in a way that became unfavorable to Miguel or his sister?

"No, and they should have told you that," said Miguel. "He changed it to my aunt Chris, and I told him I was thankful for that."

Has it been hard for Miguel and his family because the police have not ruled out family members, including Miguel, as being a person of interest?

"Yeah, it's been hard. It's gotten easier because I know I didn't have anything to do with it," said Miguel Gutierrez.

And what about the others that police investigated, like Henry's girlfriends?

"We've looked at Henry's girlfriends. They were all out of town," said Lt. Siwecki.

The people in Houston who used the stolen gift cards?

"At this time we don't believe there's any connection between the people who ended up with the cards to Henry's murder," said Siwecki.

And the drifter who sold them the cards?

"Did he come to the house and he himself steal them? I would say most likely not," said Siwecki.

Police have never found the shadowy-looking drifter. And all those leads went nowhere. So could Henry Gutierrez's killing be related to business?

Police say another person of interest is Henry's old partner Efrain Gonzalez Senior. Why is he a person of interest?

"Because we haven't had the opportunity to speak to him. He wants us to speak through his attorney," said Lt. Siwecki.

What about Efrain's son?

"Efrain Junior has talked to us. He has been cooperative with the investigation," said Siwecki.

Do police believe because Efrain Gonzalez Sr. was in a business dispute with Henry Gutierrez, that makes him a person of interest?

"Of course, because there is a lot of money to gain one way or another," said Lt. Siwecki.

Remember that alleged handshake agreement between Efrain and Henry? Efrain claimed he was entitled to half the proceeds of the sale of Bexar Waste. He sued Gutierrez and the company that bought Bexar Waste, demanding back payments for equipment and a share of the proceeds. They settled out of court.

After Henry Gutierrez died, Efrain Gonzalez got control of the land leading up to Henry's house.

"Right, that was part of the civil lawsuit," said Lt. Siwecki. "Efrain won the front piece of this land here, which now includes the main road going into the house."

Crime Watch Daily wanted to get Efrain Gonzalez and his son's reaction to the police department's claims they are persons of interest, so we went to their house in an upscale Houston neighborhood. We were unsuccessful in contacting either man at home or at work.

At work, Efrain Senior's daughter Beatrice did come out. Who does she think would want to kill Henry Gutierrez?

"No, we don't know anything about the case," Beatrice Gonzalez tells Crime Watch Daily.

We interviewed the lead detective on the case and he did say that your father and your brother are persons of interest still and they haven't been ruled out.

"They haven't advised us, they've talked to our attorneys, so I'm not sure what that means or what that implies, but they've talked to them and we've cooperated with everything," said Beatrice. "We have no involvement with that whatsoever. We loved Henry very, very much. They were family to us."

While Efrain, his son, and Henry's son Miguel are persons of interest, they are not considered suspects. And the evidence is as cluttered as a landfill in a hurricane.

There is a $75,000 reward for the capture and conviction of his killer.