Plumbing 
A couple, accompanied by two children, allegedly aggressively demanded cash and jewelry from a woman inside St. Patrick Catholic Church before fleeing the scene with $30.
The Sabinal Police Department said the family, which is from Romania, approached Uvalde County resident Evelyn Carter Feb. 18 around noon inside the church, which had emptied. Police say Carter shoved the man through the church doors and immediately locked the family out. She then contacted law enforcement.
The family left the church for the Sabinal Country Store, on Highway 90. Sabinal Police located the family there after someone else separately reported that the couple’s children were running around the parking and the parents, Ionut Marin and Anamarisa-Larisa Marin, of Romania, were asking people for money. Upon seeing police, the family fled in a dark-colored van.
Sabinal Police Chief Jesus “Chuy” Reyes found the family at McDonald’s in Uvalde after he and other officers followed the family’s van into town, lost sight of the van, and again spotted it from U.S. Highway 90.
Reyes said he brought them back to Sabinal City Hall where Carter identified them, he said.
Although Carter initially asked to press charges, she changed her mind and police let the family go after the couple returned the money and accepted a verbal warning to not return to Sabinal, Reyes said.
Reyes said the couple was not armed but did intimidate Carter into giving up her cash.
He said they initially hoped to collect money from the church but opted to take from Carter when the Rev. Oscar Tello Curiel, who was putting away the collection, declined to give them church funds.
As of Feb. 21 the department had not contacted Child Protective Services but was planning to do so, Reyes said.
Sofi Zeman (szeman@ulnnow.com, 830-278-3335) covers education and crime for the Uvalde Leader-News as a Report for America corps member. Report for America (www.reportforamerica.org) is a national service program that places talented emerging journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered topics and communities across the United States and its territories.
