Law enforcement have arrested a 43-year-old woman in Hays County and are seeking another 20-year old suspect in connection with a burglary in which one of the intruders was shot and killed by the homeowner.
Tiffany Ruoff, Yoham Bueno-Delgado, and Joseph Mathews allegedly entered a home on Boxcar Run in South Austin off Stassney Lane, with the intent to rob the homeowner, according to police.
During the home invasion, Joseph Mathews was shot by the homeowner. The homeowner’s girlfriend called 9-1-1 and EMS took the would-be burglar to a hospital with life-threatening injuries from multiple gunshot wounds.
Mathews died September 22 at a hospice house in North Carolina, five months after the incident in Austin on the night of April 26. On September 22, the North Carolina chief medical examiner conducted an autopsy and ruled the cause of death as complications from a gunshot wound.
At that point, APD sought capital murder warrants against the two surviving robbers under a provision of the Texas Penal Code known as the felony murder rule. The rule states that a person commits murder if he “commits or attempts to commit a felony, other than manslaughter, and in the course of and in furtherance of the commission or attempt, or in immediate flight from the commission or attempt, he commits or attempts to commit an act clearly dangerous to human life that causes the death of an individual.”
Officers had already arrested Bueno-Delgado on the night of the burglary and charged him with second-degree burglary of a habitation, but he had since gone free on bond. Likewise, Tiffany Ruoff was arrested in Hays County on June 29 and charged with first-degree burglary of a habitation, before also being released on bond.
Officers arrested her again October 6 on the capital murder warrant. They are also seeking to arrest Bueno-Delgado, but don’t know his whereabouts.
Under the felony murder rule, APD are counting Mathews’ death as Austin’s 63rd homicide of the year, out of 67 to-date, even though the actual shooter will not be charged because he acted in self-defense. “The homeowner was not charged in the shooting of Joseph Mathews,” APD stated in a news release.
