A magistrate set Jaime Garcia free on one murder charge recently. Garcia stayed behind bars anyway. He already faced a second murder charge in a different case. Now a Harris County grand jury has charged him again in the first case too. Garcia, 32, faces two separate murder charges at the same time.

This case shows how strange the court system can get. A magistrate can let a murder suspect go on one charge. Another charge can still keep him locked up. Prosecutors can also bring a dropped charge back with a grand jury, without going through a magistrate again. Two people are dead in Harris County. One man stands accused in both killings, and he is not walking free. The two cases happened only weeks apart.

The first case goes back to May 26. Someone shot the first victim to death inside an SUV. The truck sat in the 1300 block of Patch Street. That spot is in far east Harris County, south of Interstate 10 and west of Beltway 8. Drivers passing by found the SUV around 7:30 that morning. Cops believe the shooting happened hours before that.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office, led by Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, worked the case. Deputies said the shooter sat inside the vehicle with the first victim. The shooter then ran off. Cops have not said why the shooting happened.

On July 9, cops charged Garcia with murder in that killing.

Two days later, on July 11, Garcia had a probable cause hearing. At this kind of hearing, a magistrate checks if cops have enough evidence to keep a suspect in jail and set bond. This time, the magistrate said no. The magistrate ruled there was not enough evidence to hold Garcia. By law, cops had to let him go right away.

Garcia did not walk out of jail, though. He was already locked up on a second murder charge from a different case. Prosecutors said they were looking at other ways to bring the first murder charge back against him.

On July 14, they got their answer. A grand jury indicted Garcia. That means the murder charge from the Patch Street case is back on. (Generally speaking, a grand jury has the power to bring charges on its own after reviewing evidence, separate from a magistrate's earlier ruling.)

The second murder charge comes from a killing on July 3. The second victim worked as a repairman. He drove to a home on Crathie Drive in the Atascocita area to fix a water leak. He never made it home to pick up his kids that day. His sister got worried and called deputies.

Deputies went inside the home and found the repairman dead. He had been shot. His sister's call is what led deputies to the house in the first place.

The sheriff's office said Garcia is the homeowner's son. Garcia was supposed to meet the repair company at the house that day. Deputies say Garcia shot and killed the repairman. Cops have not said why.

A magistrate did find probable cause in the repairman's killing. That means Garcia stayed in jail without bond in that case, waiting for a future court date. That was the charge that kept him locked up even after the first murder charge got tossed out days earlier.

Garcia now faces murder charges in both deaths at the same time. He remains in the Harris County jail. One charge almost slipped away from prosecutors last week. It did not. Now both cases move forward together. It is not clear yet when either case will go to trial.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office and court records are the source for the facts in this story.