HOUSTON – More than three years after 9-year-old Arlene Alvarez was shot and killed while sitting in the backseat of her family’s truck on Valentine’s Day 2022, her father took the witness stand on the first day of the trial for the man accused of killing her, Tony Earls Jr.
Arlene’s father, Armando Alvarez, was the first family witness called Wednesday. As he entered the courtroom, the gallery fell silent.
He told the judge before taking the stand, “I’m good. I’m ready to go.”
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He described in heart-wrenching detail how his daughter had just handed him a Valentine’s Day gift when he got home from work that evening. Hours later, she was killed as their family drove past a Chase Bank in Gulfgate.
“I was trying to get her out of the vehicle and try to render aid to her as much as I can,” Alvarez said on the stand. “Wendy was screaming at me for me to give her CPR and I just couldn’t.”
That night, Tony Earls and his wife had been held at gunpoint while at the ATM. Surveillance footage shows the robbery suspect running away. Prosecutors say instead of staying in the car or calling police, Earls jumped out of his vehicle and began shooting.
“As Armando is being shot at, he tells his family ‘Get down! Get down!’ Everyone gets down except Arlene, because she had headphones in,” said Harris County Prosecutor John Jordan. “She couldn’t hear him.”
Jordan says Earls fired three shots toward the robbery suspect and then continued firing as the Alvarez family drove past the bank. 10 total rounds were fired.
“Three. Two. Four. One,” Jordan said. “The three shots at the guy’s back. Boom. Boom. Two at the truck. Another one, another one, another one.”
Alvarez recalled that horrific moment when he realized something was wrong.
“I thought Arlene had ducked down. But she didn’t. It was because she had a bullet in her head,” he said. “I get out the vehicle because I realized Arlene went forward too hard. I just panicked…I run around my vehicle to get her attention to make sure she was ok.”
In his initial interviews and testimony in 2023 and again in April 2024, Alvarez said he believed Earls and the robber were shooting at each other.
On the stand Tuesday, Alvarez admitted he had changed that account, saying he based his earlier statements on what he had seen on the news not what he personally witnessed. He confirmed to defense attorneys that he later realized it was Earls alone who fired at his vehicle.
During the defense’s opening statement, attorney Anthony Osso argued that the wrong person was being tired.
“There is a robbery suspect and armed robber out there that should be sitting in this chair right here,” Osso said.
The defense argued that Earls believed the Alvarez family’s truck was somehow connected to the robbery. They said he had a reasonable suspicion that someone in the vehicle might have been the assailant.
“He wasn’t reckless that night,” Osso told jurors. “He had a reason to believe that truck was involved in the robbery.”
The defense also pointed to what they described as “half-baked” police work, claiming investigators never thoroughly searched the area where the robbery suspect ran.
“They never found the robber’s gun,” Osso argued. “Without it, they can’t prove whether that gun fired back or not.”
Armando Alvarez is expected to return to the stand when the trial resumes Thursday at 9:30 a.m.