A parolee who authorities said cut off his ankle monitor and carried out a series of killings in the Houston area has been arrested and charged with capital murder. 
 
 Jose Gilberto Rodriguez, 46, is a suspect in at least three slayings in the past week, with police calling him a "possible serial killer" at a news conference Monday night. 
 
 Rodriguez was taken into custody without incident Tuesday morning after leading police on a chase, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said at a news conference Tuesday. A weapon was recovered, Gonzalez said. 
 
 Houston Police Department 
 
 When Harris County Sheriff's deputy Jorge Reyes, who helped nab Rodriguez, left home for his shift Monday night, he told his wife, "I'm gonna catch him," Reyes recalled at Tuesday's news conference. 
 
 Gonzalez said he's "happy and relieved that this dangerous individual ... is off the streets." 
 
 Rodriguez, a high-risk registered sex offender, had been released from prison in September 2017 after serving part of a 20-year sentence for attempted aggravated sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl, according to records with the Texas Department of Corrections. 
 
 Houston Police Department 
 
 Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo on Tuesday said there aren't enough law enforcement officers focusing on holding parolees accountable and he promised to set the standard in Harris County. 
 
 "We've got to up our game," Acevedo said. "There's not enough of us dealing with parolees." 
 
 Rodriguez may be responsible for at least five attacks in the area, three of which were fatal shootings, police said. 
 
 The victims appeared to be randomly chosen, officials said. 
 
 The first attack, on July 9, was a home-invasion robbery where the victim survived. 
 
 Harris County Sheriffs Office 
 
 Four days later, Pamela Johnson, 62, was found dead inside her home in northwest Harris County, police said in a news release. Her car, a 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser, was stolen from her home and found abandoned the next day at nearby Willowbrook Mall. 
 
 When investigators reviewed surveillance video from the mall, they observed the suspect, later identified as Rodriguez, park the car and leave the scene. 
 
 On Saturday, a second killing occurred at a mattress store in Houston, police said. 
 
 The third slaying was at another mattress store in the area on Sunday. 
 
 On Monday morning, a metro lift operator was robbed and shot but is expected to survive, officials said. 
 
 Rodriguez has been charged with two counts of capital murder for Johnson's death and the mattress store attack, officials said Tuesday. A third capital murder charge will likely be filed Wednesday, officials said. ||||| Suspected serial killer expected to face 3 capital murder charges 
 
 Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo holds up a photo of Jose Gilberto Rodriguez, 46, on Monday July 16, 2018. Rodriguez is accused in three separate killings and two other violent robberies. Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo holds up a photo of Jose Gilberto Rodriguez, 46, on Monday July 16, 2018. Rodriguez is accused in three separate killings and two other violent robberies. Photo: Jay R. Jordan Photo: Jay R. Jordan Image 1 of / 34 Caption Close Suspected serial killer expected to face 3 capital murder charges 1 / 34 Back to Gallery 
 
 It was the call they'd been waiting for. 
 
 Harris County Deputy Jorge Reyes and his partner had been up all night, patrolling Cypress, eyes peeled for a parolee suspected in a violent spree that included the July killings of two people at local mattress stores and a woman found dead at her home. 
 
 The suspect — who'd allegedly cut off his ankle monitor before unleashing a nine-day reign of terror — had eluded capture for almost two weeks, sowing seeds of fear throughout the northern part of the county. 
 
 Now Playing: 
 
 But just after 6 a.m., the lawmen got the tip they needed. There was a suspicious man in a gray Nissan Sentra in the neighborhood. And he fit the description. 
 
 Source: Houston Police Department and Harris County Sheriff's Office | Created by data journalist Rachael Gleason 
 
 It took a half-hour to find him and 14 minutes to chase him down, but by 7 a.m., deputies had him in custody. 
 
 Now, authorities say Jose Gilberto Rodriguez is expected to face three capital murder charges after a much-anticipated arrest that brought relief to residents of greater Houston. 
 
 "A lot of Harris County residents will be sleeping much better tonight," said a relieved Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, less than 24 hours after he and Houston's police chief held a joint news conference to plead for the public's help in locating Rodriguez. 
 
 In addition to the three killings, Rodriguez, 46, a convicted sex offender, is suspected in a home invasion involving an elderly couple and the shooting of a METROLift bus driver. Authorities said the victims were innocent people who just happened to cross the suspect's violent path. 
 
 The violent spree focused new attention on the problem of parole violators, sparking promises of change from Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, who vowed to create the state's "biggest" task force to go after them. 
 
 "We are going to be flies on stink to parolees," Acevedo said late Tuesday. "They're not going to like us." 
 
 In addition to creating a "model" task force of local agencies focused on the county's 18,000 parolees, Acevedo called for tougher laws, such as subjecting those on parole to random searches. 
 
 The manhunt began around July 5, when Rodriguez clipped off his ankle monitor and slipped away, authorities say. They gave the following account: 
 
 Now Playing: 
 
 WOMAN SLAIN: Mattress Firm employee found shot dead in Willowbrook store 
 
 Four days later, investigators say, he broke into an elderly couple's home in the 12000 block of Foxburo. There, he allegedly held an 87-year-old homeowner at gunpoint, tying him up and crushing a pillow over his face during a robbery. 
 
 The man's 86-year-old wife was in the shower at the time and survived unharmed. 
 
 It's not clear what the suspect did or where he went in the days that followed. But on Friday, police found the first body. 
 
 It was that of 62-year-old Pamela Johnson, a Kroger grocery chain employee who'd been shot to death in her Cypress home before. Her car was stolen. 
 
 A day later, the manager of a Mattress Firm on FM 1960 in the Willowbrook area found 28-year-old employee Allie Barrow shot in the head in the store's back office. Hours later, a witness spotted a man ditching Johnson's missing car at the Willowbrook Mall. 
 
 Early Monday, the violent streak continued with the shooting of a 22-year-old METROLift bus driver. He was transported to the hospital and listed in critical condition. 
 
 The last of the fatal shootings came later that day, when police found the body of 57-year-old Edward Magaña inside a Mattress One on the North Freeway. 
 
 By that point, police were on high alert. They thought they knew who their killer was — and that he might be looking to kill again. 
 
 "There's no doubt in our mind that he intended to find his next victim," Gonzalez said. 
 
 The suspect's violent past dates back to at least 1989, when, records show, he was sent to prison for attempted sex assault, burglary, and auto theft convictions. 
 
 That September, he broke into a young woman's home and stole her car. He pulled down the teenage girl's pants and underwear and tried to rape her in an act that court records describe as "more than mere preparation that tended to but failed to effect the commission of the offense intended." 
 
 He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and while behind bars also was sentenced to six years in prison for a theft charge he picked up in Montgomery County the year before. 
 
 All four of the felony sentences ran concurrently, but two years later he caught another charge while in prison at the Coffield Unit in Anderson County. 
 
 This time, he was sentenced to 10 more years in prison after a conviction for one count of possession of a deadly weapon inside a penitentiary, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel. 
 
 With the stacked sentences, he wasn't let out on parole until September 2017. 
 
 It wasn't the parole board's decision to release him, Desel stressed. Given the amount of time he'd served, the law required his release. 
 
 At one point he lived in the Dallas area after prison, though records show he later returned to Houston and moved into a Fifth Ward halfway house. He was deemed a high-risk sex offender, though the home's owner, Theresa Williams, described him as nice and hardworking — an "ideal" tenant who always paid on time and helped mow the grass. 
 
 He was holding down a job at a nearby Tyson's factory and was scheduled to be under parole supervision until 2023. 
 
 Williams said she last saw him sometime last week, when he left the house, ostensibly headed out to do laundry. 
 
 "Don't worry, Mama T," Williams recalled him saying. "I'm never gonna leave you." 
 
 When police started questioning Rodriguez on Tuesday morning, the man they found was not nice or interested in helping out. 
 
 He was stoic, investigators said. He didn't admit to his alleged crimes or express remorse. 
 
 But still, authorities said, they felt confident they had enough to tie him to all three slayings — though they declined to offer specifics. 
 
 Police recovered a pistol during the arrest, but it won't be clear until tests come back whether it's the murder weapon. 
 
 By late Tuesday, he'd been formally charged with one count of capital murder, and police said two more counts are expected. He's being held without bond in the Harris County jail. 
 
 For Reyes — one of the two deputies who arrested Rodriguez — that ending seemed almost predestined. 
 
 "When I left house before my shift, I told my wife, 'I'm gonna catch him,'" the four-year veteran of the sheriff's office recalled at Tuesday's press conference. 
 
 "And I did." 
 
 Victoria Cheyne, Julian Gill, Jay Jordan and Stephen Tucker Paulsen contributed to this report. 
 
 keri.blakinger@chron.com 
 
 samantha.ketterer@chron.com
– Houston police believe they nabbed a suspected serial killer with the Tuesday morning arrest of Jose Gilberto Rodriguez. A deadly crime spree began in the area on July 9 with a home invasion and robbery followed by the murder of a 62-year-old woman whose car was stolen. On Saturday, a 28-year-old employee of a mattress store was shot dead in the store's back office. In two separate shootings Monday, a 22-year-old bus driver was left in critical condition and a 57-year-old man was killed in another mattress store. Rodriguez, 46, is suspected in all of the crimes. He was arrested after someone spotted a suspicious vehicle in the Cypress area Tuesday morning and alerted authorities, who captured him after a 14-minute chase. He was found in a car stolen from one of the victims, and a pistol was found in the car, the Houston Chronicle reports. Rodriguez has a violent history dating back to at least 1989, with felony convictions for crimes including attempted sex assault, burglary, and auto theft. He was paroled in September 2017 and deemed a high-risk sex offender. Days before the police announced the manhunt for Rodriguez Monday, he allegedly cut off his ankle monitor. "We are very relieved this morning," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters. "We're very relieved, again, very thankful, to the citizens of Harris County for calling in, being diligent and reporting this to us so that we could take action." Authorities, who believe Rodriguez was on the hunt for his next victim when he was caught, have not offered details on the evidence allegedly linking him to the crimes. They believe the victims were chosen randomly, ABC News reports. He's been hit with two capital murder charges and a third is expected.