Texas dad in the clear after fatally beating daughter's molester

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Texas dad in the clear after fatally beating daughter's molester

Article by: PAUL J. WEBER , a nd RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI Associated Press
Updated: June 19, 2012 - 8:49 PM

Texas authorities said no charges would be filed in case where father found his 5-year-old child being attacked.

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District Attorney Heather McMinn, with the local sheriff and an attorney, declined to press charges.

Photo: Ramit Masti, Associated Press

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SHINER, TEXAS - Hearing his 5-year-old daughter crying from behind a barn, a father ran and discovered the unthinkable: A man molesting her. The father pulled the man off his daughter, authorities say, and pummeled him to death with his fists.

With his daughter safe, the father frantically called 911, begging a dispatcher to find his rural ranch and send an ambulance.

"Come on! This guy is going to die on me!" the man is heard screaming on the recording, which authorities played during a news conference Tuesday where they announced that the father would not face charges. "I don't know what to do!"

In declining to indict the 23-year-old father in the June 9 killing of Jesus Mora Flores, a Lavaca County grand jury reached the same conclusion as investigators and many of the father's neighbors: He was authorized to use deadly force to protect his daughter.

"It's sad a man had to die," said Michael James Veit, 48, who lives across the street from where the attack happened in the small community. "But I think anybody would have done that."

The family ranch is so remote that on the 911 tape, the father is heard profanely screaming at a dispatcher who couldn't locate the property.

The nearly five-minute call begins with the father saying he "beat up" a man found raping his daughter. The father grows increasingly frazzled, shouting into the phone so loudly at times that the call often becomes inaudible.

The Associated Press is not identifying the father in order to protect the daughter.

"He had no intention to kill anybody that day," said V'Anne Huser, the father's attorney.

Authorities say a witness who saw Flores "forcibly carrying" the girl into a secluded area scrambled to find the father.

The girl was examined at a hospital, and authorities say forensic evidence and witness accounts corroborated the father's story that his daughter was being sexually molested.