Houston Man Charged in Girlfriend's Fatal Apartment Shooting, Arrested
Monica Olivarez, 50, was shot dead at her Houston apartment after neighbors heard gunfire; her boyfriend Eric Goosby, 48, a convicted felon, was arrested days later.
Eric Eugene Goosby spent four days on the run after investigators say he fatally shot his girlfriend, Monica Olivarez, 50, inside her apartment at 2831 Laura Koppe Road in Houston's Eastex-Jensen neighborhood. HPD took Goosby, 48, into custody Thursday afternoon, April 3, and booked him into Harris County Jail on charges of murder and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon.
The timeline detectives reconstructed begins the night of March 29. Neighbors at the Laura Koppe Road complex heard gunshots around 9 p.m. and then watched a man they believed to be Olivarez's boyfriend leave the apartment alone. No emergency call followed. The next afternoon, Monday, March 30, Houston Fire Department crews arrived at 1:50 p.m. in response to a "person down" call, found Olivarez unresponsive inside her unit, and pronounced her dead at the scene.
HPD Homicide Division detectives moved the case from a death investigation to formal criminal charges in two days flat. By April 1, the 495th Criminal District Court carried two counts against Goosby: murder, and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. That second charge carries weight beyond the headline count. Goosby's prior felony record bars him from legally possessing a firearm, giving prosecutors an independent legal lever that stands regardless of how the murder case develops at trial.
With Goosby unaccounted for after those charges were filed, HPD put out a public appeal for tips through the Homicide Division and Crime Stoppers. Whatever those tips produced, they produced quickly. Authorities made the arrest Thursday afternoon, less than 72 hours after the wanted bulletin went public.
Olivarez's daughter, Monique Oliverez, had a harder wait. She learned of her mother's death through social media, a friend's message arriving before any official notification reached the family. After Goosby's arrest, she said it felt like "the biggest weight off my shoulders," and that she could now focus on laying her mother to rest.
The case maps a pattern true crime followers will recognize immediately: a victim found hours after a witness places the suspect leaving the scene, a gap between the shooting and the discovery call, and a public tip phase that collapsed the fugitive's options inside three days. That delay in reporting gunfire is something domestic violence advocates consistently flag in multi-unit housing situations. Residents who hear what sounds like shots inside an apartment building and hesitate to call 911 effectively give an at-large suspect a head start. Anyone in Harris County experiencing or witnessing intimate-partner violence can reach the Houston Area Women's Center's 24-hour crisis line at 713-528-2121.
Goosby remains in Harris County Jail as the 495th Criminal District Court advances the case toward pretrial hearings and a potential grand jury proceeding on both counts.
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