Editor’s note: This article has been updated with a mugshot of Matthew Gray provided by the Presidio County Sheriff’s Office on August 15.
MARFA — Irlanda Vargas said she was desperately trying to tell a shooter firing shots at her car early Wednesday morning who she was and why she was in the Marfa Open parking lot. A first shot coming from the Marfa Open porch sent her in a panic — terrified and confused about who would be shooting at her and why.
Then the unexpected happened, the shooter’s dog — which had fled the porch with the first shot — crossed the parking lot and jumped into Vargas’ car. “I thought that if I left, [the shooter] would follow me to get his dog,” she said. Vargas said she grabbed the dog’s collar and yanked it out of her car just as a second gunshot hit the passenger side of her car. Vargas, a longtime Alpine resident, said she had gotten out of the driver’s side of her car trying to communicate with the shooter, but then after getting the dog out, she jumped back in, backed her car up and sped out of the parking lot just as a third shot rang out.
Vargas said she doesn’t know why Matthew “Matty” Gray took aim at her in her car, as police alleged, but she said she’s angry that a local judge released him on a low bond and is further upset with police for not informing the community about the incident until Saturday after it was first reported by The Big Bend Sentinel.
Vargas, who could not be immediately reached in Friday’s story on the shooting, connected with The Sentinel Saturday, outlined her account of the ordeal and said she wanted to speak publicly about concerns she has over how the incident was handled by authorities. Security video given to The Sentinel by Marfa Open confirms the general details of the incident, which were also outlined by the Marfa Police Department in a Friday email and the Saturday release posted on the department’s Facebook page.
According to police statements and security video, a man showed up around midnight Wednesday at Marfa Open at 102 S. Plateau Street with a pistol, urinated off the porch, sat down and then took aim at a car that had just pulled into the parking lot. The man then fired a shot at the vehicle, waited, then fired another shot before firing once more as the car left the parking lot.
Marfa Police said in their statement they were notified about the incident when they pulled a woman over for a traffic stop just after midnight, and the woman reported that someone at the Marfa Open lot had fired shots at her while she sat in her car. The officer also noted a bullet hole in the car. Reports of shots fired were also called in. Vargas added details to the police account and said when she sped out of Marfa Open, she turned left on W. San Antonio, and she was distraught and driving erratically trying to get to the police station — which was why she was pulled over.
After police started investigating the area around Marfa Open, they pulled over a pickup truck driven by Matthew “Matty” Gray, 37. Officers found a pistol in the car, and later viewed the video of the shooting to identify Gray. Police arrested Gray — who most recently has been living in Valentine — and charged him with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, deadly conduct, discharge of firearm in certain municipalities, driving under the influence and unlawful carry of a firearm, according to the police statement. The Presidio County Jail initially said he was released on a $25,000 bond Wednesday, but the judge who magistrated Gray — Presidio County Judge Joe Portillo — texted The Sentinel to say it was $20,000. (This is not the same Matthew Gray as the artist who is working on sculptures west of Valentine.)
The security video was released to The Big Bend Sentinel by Jason McHenry, who runs Marfa Open. McHenry said he wanted to show that Marfa Open was not having an event or party at the time. The video shows a man that appears to be Gray sitting on an empty and quiet porch with no other sounds in the background. McHenry said Marfa Open was not connected to Gray in any formal way, but that he had done his laundry there a couple times. McHenry said he and two others at Marfa Open had just gone to sleep when they awoke to loud popping noises. “It was over before we knew what happened,” he wrote in a statement to police. “We immediately called the police, who acted swiftly and had him in custody in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, we had video cameras that detailed the entire incident from two separate angles.”
Marfa Open is a space that hosts artists in residence and art showings and also runs an art supply store. Vargas said she knew of Gray but was not close with him and had no idea why he shot at her.
“Matty” Gray had been living in a trailer behind the Valentine Bar, said owner Jeff Wilson, who spoke to The Sentinel on the Marfa Open porch Friday afternoon. He said he believes Gray, whom he knew well, had left Valentine after the incident. Wilson and McHenry said they have no clue what motivated Gray to shoot at Vargas. They speculated that the Marfa bars had just closed, Gray could have been highly intoxicated, and he may have thought someone was after him. “He was over here,” Wilson said, pointing to a back part of the parking lot, “angled and parking in a defensive position.”
The video is not being released presently at the request of Marfa Open and Vargas. It shows what is alleged to be Gray pulling into the parking lot then moving his truck to a corner not captured by security cameras. Then the porch video shows him striding up with his dog, carrying a pistol. The man is wearing a black T-shirt with “Austin Moto” on the back and a straw cowboy hat, accompanied by his dog. After relieving himself and sitting down, the camera picks up a white sedan entering the lot and stopping parallel to the porch. McHenry said he later found out that Vargas was texting her friend to let him know she had arrived. The man points the pistol directly at the car — which was a fair distance away across the lot — and says, “Who’s that?” He then says, “Call out your name, you’re on private property. You’re on private property, call out your name.” He fires a shot at the sedan, which sends his dog fleeing the porch, and again says, “Call out your name, you’re on private property.” Then he says, “Keep going. Whoever you are, keep going,” before firing a second shot that clearly hits the passenger side of the sedan. The sedan backs up, turning to face the exit and proceeds to drive away, but the man fires a third and final shot at it.
McHenry said that after Gray’s dog fled, he was found and returned to Valentine, but it’s unclear whether he went back to Gray. Gray has been a regular at the Valentine bar and bartender there for the past several months, according to patrons of the bar and Facebook posts by Gray.
Vargas said the bond set for Gray was far too low considering that she could have been killed and that Gray could pose a threat to others in the area. The Sentinel asked Judge Portillo for comment, but he only responded by text Sunday on the bond amount being $20,000. He did not answer to if there were any “conditions of release,” which almost all those arrested are given after meeting bond, a checklist that outlines specific things that could revoke the bond and have them jailed again — commonly conditions like staying out of bars, not associating with victims or certain criminals, and frequently, a requirement that they stay in a certain area (usually the county they are in).
The Sentinel filed a records request for any conditions set for Gray. Local attorney Liz Rogers, who was at Gray’s magistration to help with the bond process, said stricter conditions are usually found at the federal court level, and it’s not uncommon for restrictions on individuals to be much laxer in state felony cases — often with the bail bond company keeping tabs on their clients’ locations and getting them to court hearings. The Sentinel filed an open records request for those conditions. Rogers said she did not request anything regarding the bond amount from Portillo. She said she would not be representing Gray in the case, and it’s still uncertain who his attorney will be.
Several people contacted for this story questioned why the Marfa Police Department didn’t inform the community of the incident and only sent out statements after being contacted by The Sentinel. While the statement posted on Saturday to Facebook was dated August 7, the date of the incident, the department had withheld the information until August 10.
The Sentinel reached out to Gray for comment but has not received a response.