Spring homicide suspect accused in sledgehammer killing, ICE says illegal entry

A woman’s 911 call from a house under renovation in Spring led deputies to a grim discovery on Goldensong Court: Juan Antonio Salinas Leija, a 47-year-old carpenter, had been found dead inside the Northgate Crossing home where he had been working for weeks.

Harris County sheriff’s deputies responded around 11:30 a.m. Sunday, April 12, to the 23200 block of Goldensong Court after family members realized they had not heard from Salinas since Friday afternoon. The family went to check on him Sunday morning and found him dead inside the residence, which was vacant and undergoing repairs after a prior fire.

Investigators said Salinas suffered severe trauma to his upper torso, head and neck. They have said an autopsy would determine the exact cause of death. Prosecutors allege he was beaten with a sledgehammer inside the home.

The murder charge filed in the case names 19-year-old Josue Abraham Chirino-Leonice. Local law enforcement arrested Chirino-Leonice in Pasadena on April 12 after he was reportedly found driving Salinas’ vehicle. The truck later became a key part of the case because it was missing from the Spring scene before turning up miles away in Pasadena.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office is handling the homicide investigation. Court records cited by local outlets say Chirino-Leonice was being held without bond in the Harris County Jail. The case has also moved quickly into immigration enforcement, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lodging a detainer with the jail on April 13.

Federal authorities said Chirino-Leonice first entered the country illegally and was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol in November 2023 when he arrived as an unaccompanied minor. He was later released into the U.S. interior, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That timeline has sharpened the question now hanging over the case: how a teenager previously encountered at the border was later living in the Houston area and, police say, working alongside Salinas before the killing.

The death has left a Spring family facing both grief and a trail of unanswered questions at a worksite that should have been routine. Instead, a carpenter’s job at a home damaged by fire became the center of a homicide case stretching from Northgate Crossing to Pasadena, and then into the federal immigration system.