Houston man charged with capital murder in 90-year-old's death

A 90-year-old Houston store owner died weeks after a violent Canal Street assault, and now a 34-year-old man is facing a capital murder charge in the case. Houston police say Anthony Cerda was arrested and booked into the Harris County jail after charges were filed in the 232nd Criminal Court, turning Francisco Chura’s death investigation into a homicide prosecution.

Investigators say patrol officers were called to 7801 Canal Street about 9 a.m. on Aug. 20, 2025, after an assault report. When they arrived, they found Chura suffering from multiple blunt-force trauma wounds to his body. Houston Fire Department paramedics took him to a hospital, where he later died on Sept. 7, 2025.

The charge, announced June 12, 2026, comes months after the attack and suggests detectives spent a long stretch building the case before naming a suspect. Police did not publicly lay out a motive or say exactly what evidence pushed the investigation over the line, but later court-record reporting filled in more of the picture. Those reports said detectives believed Cerda had entered Chura’s home by removing an air-conditioning unit from a back window, then attacked him with a screwdriver.

That same reporting said investigators found a bent screwdriver with blood on it, along with an open safe that had no money inside. Chura had reported about $3,000 missing from the safe, a detail that strengthened the robbery theory behind the killing. Court records also described a Crime Stoppers tip and DNA on the screwdriver as key pieces that helped identify Cerda.

Law&Crime reported that investigators later saw a man with long hair hiding in a crawl space near the crime scene, and that a homeowner identified him as her nephew, Cerda. Those reports also said Chura was attacked inside a home attached to the convenience store he had owned for decades, and that he had been asleep when the violence began. According to the court records cited in the reports, Chura said he played dead until the suspect left.

Neighbors told ABC13 Houston that Chura was well known in the area and ran the local store for years, a familiar figure in Southeast Houston now at the center of a case that moved from assault to capital murder only after months of detective work. The next chapter will play out in court, where the evidence behind the late-filed charge is likely to be tested.