TOWN OF YORK (WKOW) -- Dane County investigators announced charges against a Waterloo man in a May 2022 homicide.
According to Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett, 71-year-old Jose Luis Gonzalez shot and killed 39-year-old Dora Gonzalez- Zarate at her home in rural Dane County.
27 News obtained the criminal complaint filed in Dane County Circuit Court, in which investigators claim Zarate was shot once in the head and died on her kitchen floor.
Officials believe Gonzalez and Zarate were in an intimate relationship and said text messages, cited as evidence, lead them to believe Zarate was trying to end the relationship before she was killed. However, according to the complaint, Gonzalez claimed the two were just friends and he was already married.
Written in the complaint, Detective Grunewald reported on May 24, 2022, at approximately 1:32pm, deputies were dispatched to Zarate's home on York Center Road where deputies said Zarate's body was found inside her trailer home.
Detectives said through several interviews they were able to conclude Gonzalez was at the home the morning of the homicide and that his blue 2008 Dodge Caravan was seen by several witnesses. Gonzalez denied being there, but investigators said his cell phone data puts him at the scene for roughly 20 minutes that morning.
Dane County Sheriff detectives also claim Gonzalez changed his clothes after being at the trailer home and is seen on security cameras at several businesses later that day wearing a different outfit. Investigators claim during a search warrant of Gonzalez's Waterloo home, they found the clothes, he was reportedly wearing earlier, in his washing machine.
Sheriff Barrett said his investigator's also seized several guns from the property that were taken into evidence. He said in the days after Zarate's death, Gonzalez traveled to visit family in Delaware. Barrett said Dane County detectives followed him there and placed him under arrest. He's facing tentative charges of First Degree Intentional Homicide and is being held at the Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown, Delaware.
Barrett said the investigation into Dora's death is still open. Investigators are looking to "seek information from anyone who knew Dora and had contact with her in the weeks and days prior to her death."
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