Man at large after allegedly killing woman 8 months pregnant with his baby: Police
Kevin Faux, 24, is charged with murder for the death of the mother of his unborn baby, police said. (Houston Police)
(HOUSTON) — A man is at large after allegedly killing a woman who was 8 months pregnant with his baby, according to authorities.
Ashanti Allen, a 23-year-old Houston woman, was reported missing on April 10, Houston police said. Allen’s pregnancy was considered high-risk, according to the search and recovery organization Texas EquuSearch, whose members helped in the search.
On Thursday, police said a 23-year-old woman was found dead near a Houston community center. Police did not confirm the identity, but the family confirmed the victim was Allen, and Texas EquuSearch said the victim is believed to be Allen and her unborn child, Jackson.
The father of her baby, 24-year-old Kevin Faux, is charged with murder, police said, noting that Faux is not in custody.
Faux has a history of assault charges, according to court records obtained by Houston ABC station KTRK, including a September 2025 case when he allegedly assaulted Allen.
Allen’s cause of death is pending an autopsy, police said.
“My body’s been numb ever since I received the phone call,” Allen’s father, Edward Allen, told reporters. “We was hoping for the best. But now we’ve heard the worst.”
“Being pregnant, eight months, with my first grandson… I can’t even tell you how I feel,” Edward Allen said. “… I love my baby girl. She’s my only girl.”
He said the 23-year-old was excited to be a mother.
“Her life was going somewhere,” he said.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family and friends as they navigate through this very difficult time,” Texas EquuSearch said in a statement. “Thank you for all who were involved and members who showed up each day, giving it their all.”
Houston police ask anyone with information about the case or information on Faux’s whereabouts to call the department at 713-308-3600 or Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
(COMAL COUNTY, Texas) — A 15-year-old boy allegedly shot a teacher at his Texas high school on Monday morning, authorities said.
The suspect died at the scene at Hill Country College Preparatory High School in Comal County, about 30 miles north of San Antonio, the Comal County Sheriff’s Office said.
A teacher, a female, was taken to a San Antonio hospital in unknown condition, the sheriff’s office said.
The school was placed on lockdown and students were evacuated to be reunited with their parents, authorities said.
“There is no ongoing threat to students,” the sheriff’s department said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Two people are dead and 14 others hospitalized following a mass shooting early Sunday morning. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The FBI said it is investigating a possible terrorism motive in a mass shooting early Sunday outside a bar in Austin, Texas, that left two people dead and more than a dozen others injured.
The suspected gunman was killed in a confrontation with police officers, who were already staged in the city’s entertainment district when the shooting broke out, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis said at a news conference on Sunday.
The suspect has been identified as Ndiaga Diagne, a 53-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Senegal, sources with knowledge of the matter told ABC News.
Davis said the suspect was living in Pflugerville, Texas.
The suspect was wearing clothing that referenced Allah and a T-shirt that referenced Iran, with an Iranian flag underneath the word, according to multiple law enforcement officials.
Diagne entered the U.S. in March 2000, on a B-2 tourist visa. In 2006, he adjusted to lawful permanent resident (IR-6) based on marriage to a U.S. citizen, according to multiple law enforcement officials.
He naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2013.
In 2022, he was arrested in Texas for a collision with a vehicle damage, a source told ABC News.
Alex Doran, the acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Antonio field office, said a motive for the shooting remains under investigation, but terrorism is a possible motive.
“There were indicators on the subject and in his vehicle that indicate potential nexus to terrorism,” Doran said Sunday. “Again, it’s still too early to make a determination on that.”
In a social media post on Sunday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that President Donald Trump had been briefed regarding the shooting in Austin.
Davis said 911 callers began reporting a shooting on West Sixth Street in downtown Austin just before 2 p.m. She said the 911 callers stated that someone was shooting around Buford’s Bar.
“We know that a large SUV drove several times around the block in that area,” Davis said. “At one point, [the suspect] put his flashers on, rolled down his window and began using a pistol, shooting out of his car windows, striking patrons of the bar that were on the patio and that were in front of the bar.”
Davis said the suspect then parked his vehicle, got out and opened fire on people gathered on the sidewalk.
She said the Austin police department had a contingent of officers assigned to patrol the area in the busy West Sixth Street entertainment district. She said the officers were about 55 to 56 seconds away from where the suspect was shooting, and rushed toward the gunfire.
Davis said the suspect was walking in the direction of the police when officers confronted him and killed him.
Bystander video verified by ABC News captured the suspected shooter walking on the sidewalk toward police officers as he fired a barrage of shots. The video shows officers returning fire, striking the suspect before he falls to the ground as someone screams in the background, “Oh, my God!”
The sources told ABC News that the suspect initially fired five to seven shots from a handgun into a crowd of people before police said he exited his vehicle and was confronted by Austin Police officers.
“There is no question in my mind that the quick response of the police officers and of our EMS personnel and those professionals made a difference and saved lives,” Austin Mayor Kirk Watson said at the news conference.
Three Austin Police Department officers encountered a suspect armed with a gun on the street near Buford’s Bar, police said at an earlier news conference. The officers returned fire, fatally shooting the man, police said.
The FBI’s Joint terrorism Task Force is joining the investigation into the shooting, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Law enforcement is also probing whether there were any mental health issues related to the suspected shooter, sources said, adding that as of now the shooting is considered an isolated incident, rather than part of a larger plot.
ABC News spoke via telephone with a woman in Texas, who confirmed that she is Diagne’s ex-wife. She said they divorced in 2022 and that she has not spoken to her ex-husband in four or five years. The woman said she knew nothing about the Austin shooting and said she was shocked when she heard about it.
Asked if her ex-husband was religious, she said, “He was religious, yeah.” She did not elaborate.
She said they previously lived in New York together and then, in 2017, moved to Texas because Diagne wanted more space for their family, including their two children. She said that before moving to Texas, her ex-husband went there for a week to check it out as a possible place to move, and then he came back to New York and told her, “Oh, I think you’re gonna love it, it’s quiet.”
She said they initially moved to San Antonio.
The Austin Police Department had earlier released a statement urging people to avoid the area near the 600 block of Rio Grande Street, the Downtown Austin block where the bar is located.
Photos and videos from the scene showed a major emergency response. Paramedics and officers arrived on the scene less than a minute after the first call came in, Chief Robert Luckritz, of the Austin-Travis County EMS, said on Sunday.
Three people, including a suspect, were pronounced dead at the scene, Luckritz said, adding that another 14 were transported to local hospitals for treatment for injuries.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement on Sunday that he has directed the state Department of Public Safety (DPS) to increase patrols in the West Sixth Street area during the weekends.
Abbott said that before the shooting, he directed the DPS and the Texas National Guard to intensify patrols and surveillance across the state in a precautionary measure in response to the joint U.S.-Israel military operation in Iran.
“This act of violence will not define us, nor will it shake the resolve of Texans,” Abbott said of the mass shooting. “To anyone who thinks about using the current conflict in the Middle East to threaten Texans or our critical infrastructure, understand this clearly: Texas will respond with decisive and overwhelming force to protect our state.”
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro is escorted by U.S. Drug Enforcement Agents after arriving in New York City, January 3, 2026. Obtained by ABC News
The couple — who are being held in federal custody at MDC-Brooklyn — appeared in front of Judge Alvin Hellerstein. Maduro was escorted into the courtroom in shackles and orange jail slippers and is sitting two seats away from his wife.
Maduro and Flores wore headphones to hear the court-provided interpreter.
When Maduro took his seat next to defense attorney Barry Pollack, he immediately began writing on a notepad. Flores sat next to her attorney, Mark Donnelly.
Maduro stood before the judge.
“Are you, sir, Nicolas Maduro Moros?” Hellerstein asked.
Maduro declared, through an interpreter, “I am the president of Venezuela.” He added, “I was captured at my home in Caracas, Venezuela,” before the judge interrupted and told him there would be time later to challenge his custody.
Maduro then affirmed he is who the judge said he is.
Hellerstein read Maduro the standard rights.
Maduro said, through an interpreter, “I did not know of these rights. Your Honor is informing me of them now.”
“How do you plead to the indictment?” Hellerstein asked.
Maduro responded, “I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country.”
“I am innocent. I am not guilty of anything mentioned here,” Maduro responded, through an interpreter, when asked to repeat his plea the charges.
Hellerstein then turned to Maduro’s wife.
“I am Cilia Flores,” she said. “I am first lady of the Republic of Venezuela.”
Hellerstein interjected, saying, “The purpose today is just to ask you who you are.” The judge then explained her rights to remain silent and to be represented by an attorney.
“Yes I understand and I’ve heard it,” Flores said.
Asked how she pleaded to the three counts of the indictment she faces. Flores responded, “Not guilty — completely innocent.”
Maduro and Flores are among six defendants named in a four-count superseding indictment that accused them of conspiring with violent, dangerous drug traffickers for the last 25 years. Maduro has long denied all the allegations.
Dueling groups of protesters have gathered across the street from the courthouse; one is holding signs urging President Donald Trump to “Free President Maduro,” and the other is supportive of his capture.
More people protesting against what they call “illegal kidnapping” are expected to arrive shortly before the court appearance.
Maduro’s son, two high-ranking Venezuelan officials and an alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua criminal gang are the other defendants.
Trump said on Saturday that the U.S. “successfully carried out a large-scale strike against Venezuela” in which Maduro and Flores were “captured and flown out of the Country.”
Trump said the operation was carried out in conjunction with U.S. law enforcement. Members of Congress said the military, which sources said included the elite Delta Force, was in place to support that law enforcement operation.
In a move that alarmed some observers, Trump, who campaigned on “America First” and against foreign entanglements, said during a press conference at Mar-a-Lago the U.S. would “run” Venezuela for an unspecified “period of time.”
He said a team comprised of some of his Cabinet officials along with a local team in Venezuela would be “running the country” because there is “nobody to take over.”
“We’ll run it properly. We’ll run it professionally. We’ll have the greatest oil companies in the world go in and invest billions and billions of dollars and take out money, use that money in Venezuela, and the biggest beneficiary are going to be the people of Venezuela,” Trump said.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez has been sworn in as interim leader to lead the country after what the Venezuelan Supreme Court described as Maduro’s “kidnapping.”
Rodriguez demanded Maduro’s return and vowed to defend Venezuela against American aggression.
On Sunday, Rodriguez posted a statement to social media in which she appeared to soften her tone, inviting “the U.S. government to collaborate with us on an agenda of cooperation oriented towards shared development within the framework of international law to strengthen lasting community coexistence.”
Trump told reporters on Sunday that the U.S. is “in charge” of Venezuela.
The president said he had not yet spoken to Rodriguez. Asked if he wanted to, Trump said, “At the right time, I will.”
ABC News’ Meghan Mistry and Hannah Demissie contributed to this report.
