Man died while raping elderly woman

A man died while raping a 77-year-old woman in Refugio County, a sheriff's investigator said. Isabel Chavelo Gutierrez, 53, complained to the woman that he wasn't feeling well and stopped having sex with her so he could rest.

He then went back to fondling the woman before he rolled over and died, said Sgt. Gary Wright of the Refugio County Sheriff's Office. After he lost consciousness, the woman drove away from her house and called her daughter, who then alerted authorities. Gutierrez was dead when they arrived.



Investigators believe Gutierrez died of a heart attack after riding two miles on his bicycle to the woman's home in Tivoli, Wright said. The Nueces County medical examiner is conducting an autopsy. Gutierrez was armed with a pocketknife, Wright said.

He rode from his own home in Tivoli, where he was registered as a sex offender, according to the state's sex offender registry. He entered the home by lowering the glass pane on a screen door. Gutierrez was on parole for sex crimes including aggravated sexual assault and indecency with a child in 1986. He was released from prison in 2008.