A Rio Grande City woman is now in the Starr County jail. A judge signed a warrant for her arrest three years ago. Deputies booked Byanca Ivette Gallardo, 38, on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The charge goes back to a hammer attack in January 2023.
The warrant sat unserved for almost three years. A judge signed it in March 2023, right after the attack happened. Gallardo was not taken into custody until this year, 2026. This is not breaking news of a new attack. It is an old warrant that finally caught up with her. That three-year gap is part of the story too.
According to the criminal complaint, the attack happened on January 29, 2023, at about 2 a.m. in Rio Grande City. A man named Abel Bazan Jr. called the victim, Blanca Esthela Garza, and asked if he could come over. She said yes.
Bazan showed up and said they needed to go pick up his cousin first. That cousin was Gallardo. The complaint says the three of them then went back to Garza's home together.
Garza and Bazan went inside the house. Gallardo stayed in the car to charge her phone, the complaint states. A short time later, Gallardo came inside while Garza and Bazan were smoking marijuana.
Garza told investigators she went to her bedroom to change clothes. Bazan was lying on the bed. While she was changing, Garza saw Gallardo in the bedroom mirror. Gallardo was walking up behind her with a yellow and black carpenter's hammer, according to the complaint.
The complaint says Gallardo suddenly hit Garza in the head several times with the hammer. Garza said she asked Bazan for help. Instead, the complaint states, Bazan stayed on the bed and recorded the attack on his phone.
Garza said she kept asking Gallardo why she was doing this to her. The complaint quotes Gallardo's answer in Spanish: "me mandaron de arriba porque le dejaste una nina a un hombre que luego la mato." The complaint translates this as, "I was sent from above because you left a little girl with a man who later killed her." The complaint gives no other details about what this statement means. El Tejano is not speculating on it either.
Garza was left with bumps and swelling on her head. She told investigators she felt pain and discomfort after the attack.
Starr County Sheriff's Office Investigator Roberto Fernandez signed the criminal complaint. The case number is 2023-00256. Judge Orlando Rodriguez, of the Starr County Court at Law, signed the arrest warrant in March 2023. Gallardo is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. That is a serious felony. It can mean 2 to 20 years in prison.
Old warrants like this one are not rare in small counties. Deputies juggle new calls every day. An old felony warrant can sit in a stack for years. That can happen if the person named on it moves, or is simply not found. That does not mean the case goes away. It means the case waits. Sometimes it waits a long time, until a name gets checked, or a routine stop turns up an old hold.
Gallardo is charged, not convicted. Like anyone accused of a crime, she is presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. It is still not clear why the warrant went unserved for almost three years. El Tejano got this case file through a public records request. The request went to the Starr County Sheriff's Office. El Tejano has asked for more information on the delay. This story will be updated if more details come in.
