Nixon Giovanni Perez Paz, 43, and his wife, Glendy Marisol Gonzalez de la Cruz, 25, of Overland, Missouri, were found bound, gagged, and shot to death in a sugarcane field near Retalhuleu, Guatemala, in late July 2026. Their 14-month-old daughter survived, discovered dehydrated beside her mother's body; the couple leaves three young daughters now without parents.
The path that put them in Guatemala ran through U.S. immigration enforcement. Perez Paz was stopped by ICE in April 2025 while driving to roofing jobs with his brother, and was deported. His wife later self-deported to rejoin him. The family reported the couple missing on July 20, 2026, after they left to register a motorcycle and did not return.
The killers and motive are still under investigation by Guatemalan authorities; the couple were not killed by U.S. agents. The connection to the administration's policy is the deportation that placed them there. ICE said Perez Paz had prior DUI convictions, but St. Louis Public Radio reported that no records in the Missouri court database support that account.
His brother, Rolando Perez Paz, said, “If immigration hadn't picked up my brother, my sister-in-law would still be alive, and the children wouldn't be going through this sorrow.” Zachary Mueller, a strategist at States at the Core, said the deaths undercut the public-safety rationale for aggressive deportations: “It belies that idea that any of this is about public safety because now two people are dead and three young girls are without parents for the rest of their lives.”