Sounak Sengupta
Investigation Discovery’s ‘Murder Calls: Under Seige’ follows the tragic murder of Dr. Mario Gonzalez in August 2009 in Bellville, Texas. The police soon discovered that the assailants were a part of an inside job. But what was admirable was how his wife, Charleen Gonzalez, fought for her life and called the police by hiding in the bathroom and locking herself from the inside. The presence of the mind of the then-pregnant mother deserves some applause. So, who is Charleen Gonzalez, and where is she today? Let’s find out.
Who is Charleen Gonzalez?
Charleen Chuke Gonzalez was married to Dr. Jorge Mario Gonzalez Zamora on November 15, 2008, at the family ranch in Bellville, Texas. She gave birth to their first baby boy, Mario Raphael Gonzalez, and was again pregnant with another child. She was due on February 17, 2010, on the doctor’s 57th birthday. However, a tragic robbery planned by their ranch help, Noel Galvan-Cerna, would end up in the doctor getting killed and never seeing his second child ever.
On August 22, 2009, a dispatcher of Austin County got a 911 call from Charleen; she was weeping on the phone as gunshots could be heard in the background. She managed to say, “Some guys are in our house! My husband’s shooting at them!” She further added, “My husband … oh Lord! My son’s outside, he’s only a year and a half. Oh my god, I think I hear my husband.” The police arrived within a few minutes of the call at the crime scene to find Jorge dead, an injured Noel who had been shot in the arm, and a crying Raphael. The latter two were on the porch while the doctor lay dead on the ground.
The police entered the home to hear Charleen screaming from the bathroom. After reuniting the scared mother with her weeping child, the police informed her that her husband was dead. She reminisced, “The officer who was walking with me, he told me that Mario did not make it. And my knees kind of gave out and he picked me up.” Charleen went on to tell the police how the couple had reached their ranch at around 11:45 am after leaving their Houston residence.
While Noel played with Raphael outside and Jorge went inside, Charleen was busy unpacking the trunk. She recounted how she spotted the assailants, saying, “I turned to the right and I see this man, he’s in all black with a mask, he started coming towards me. So I screamed and my body just led me to the house.” Her husband went on to take on the assailants with his pistol, while she locked herself in the bathroom with her phone. She later recounted, “After some gunfire, everything went quiet. And all of a sudden, there were two masked men looking in at me.”
Charleen added, “That’s when I realized I was probably going to die that day … Then right at that same time, there was someone trying to come in the bathroom door. And I was using all my strength to keep him out of the bathroom.” She failed to keep it shut. She added, “He did open that door, and he put a gun in my face and… I think that he just ran out of bullets. And he just left. And I saw the guys at the window at the same time just run away.”
Charleen Gonzalez Has Remarried and Leads a Quiet Life Today
Charleen also told the police how Noel came to work for the family. She explained that he was the son of their nanny, Esperanza, and drove her to work every day. Jorge offered the young man a job at the ranch in 2008. She recalled, “When I first met Esperanza, she seemed very kind and sweet and a little shy. Baby Mario liked her and she was doing a great job.” Talking about Noel, Charleen said, “Noel was a pretty amazing kid and we treated him as family.”
Charleen was present on all the trial days as she saw two of the perpetrators handed life sentences without parole. Her second child, Giovanni, was born in February 2010. She has remarried and now goes by the name Charleen Gonzalez Burleson. As far as her whereabouts are concerned, Charleen has understandably chosen to keep her private life out of the public eye. However, she likely still resides in Texas.
Read More: Dr. Mario Gonzalez Murder: Where are Noel, Cristobal & Moises Galvan-Cerna Now?
