Man arrested for wife’s murder 2 years after she vanished: ‘Everything tells us she is no longer here'

A Texas man has been taken into custody in connection to the disappearance of his wife in 2019, authorities said.

San Antonio police pulled over Reyes Gallegos, 31, on Aug. 24, and arrested him on suspicion of murder.

Just over two years earlier, on June 22, 2019, Gallegos went to the workplace of his 31-year-old wife, Cecilia Huertas Gallegos, confronted a male co-worker and allegedly punched him in the face, KSAT-TV reported, citing an affidavit.

Gallegos allegedly then pulled a gun on his wife when she subsequently attempted to end her relationship with him, the affidavit states.

In the days that followed, police received more reports of issues between the couple, police write in the affidavit, noting Gallegos returned to his wife’s workplace at one point.

On July 7, 2019, Huertas Gallegos's coworkers said she left work to check on her children. Investigators said footage from security cameras at the family’s home confirmed she arrived, but she was never seen leaving the property again.

One day later, on July 8, the security cameras were disabled for over an hour, investigators said. Gallegos allegedly was then seen with two shovels, contractor-duty trash bags, a chainsaw, and cleaning supplies, according to KSAT-TV.

At the time, he was arrested for filing a false report after he allegedly told police his wife had attacked him with a knife on the day she went missing. That case was closed last year.

After Gallegos’s arrest this week, he repeatedly told a reporter from the station “I’m innocent” and said his kids “know what the truth is.”

“Ever since that day, we haven’t had peace,” Mireya Lopez, said in late 2019 of her sister's disappearance. “We have been searching day and night. It is hard. It is tough. Especially for her kids who ask for her daily. It is tough and not knowing one lead that takes us to her.”

“We wished she was still here with us, but everything tells us she is no longer here, that we are only searching for her remains," Lopez added.