Two men arrested in connection with Northeast Austin Waffle House homicide

Two men were arrested and charged with the murder of a 25-year-old woman in the parking lot of a Northeast Austin Waffle House, according to court records.

Irving Antunez Sanchez, 18, and Emmanuel Perez, 17, were arrested June 21 in connection with Tykeisha Lewis’ death on June 8, after a nearly two-week search for the two suspects.

Antunez Sanchez was identified by his brother, who recognized him in a still image from Waffle House surveillance footage released by police on June 17. Antunez Sanchez's brother called the Austin Police Department’s homicide tip line, his arrest affidavit says. He also identified Perez as his brother's friend. 

Police connected Antunez Sanchez and Perez to the scene by tracing their respective cellphones to the site around the homicide, their affidavits say, and using tips provided by members of the public, who identified Perez's Black Dodge Durango as the getaway car.  

The affidavits say the men fled the scene of the 24-hour breakfast restaurant at about 6 a.m. after shooting Lewis, who died at Dell Seton Medical Center, and her friend, Bresjawn Thompson, who survived.

Thompson told a homicide detective that her cousin and an unidentified male friend noticed the group of men were wearing high-end clothing and accessories, and complimented them. However, the men misunderstood the compliment and reacted with aggression, Thompson said.

The restaurant's security guard said he observed four men enter the restaurant between 5:15 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., and asked them to leave shortly afterward because they were causing a disturbance, Antunez Sanchez's affidavit says. Thompson's cousin and male friend went outside with the four men, and Thompson and Lewis followed them outside, trying to break up the potential fight.

The group of men exited the restaurant and began to argue with Lewis and her friend in the parking lot. Surveillance footage shows the four men walk away, the affidavits say, before they drove by Lewis and Thompson, shooting them both. 

Bullet casings recovered from the scene of the shooting matched those from a similar drive-by shooting that occurred on March 17 at a Jack in the Box in Northeast Austin, according to Antunez Sanchez's affidavit. No arrests have been made in that shooting, Austin police confirmed Wednesday.

Antunez Sanchez was being held in the Travis County Jail on a $750,000 bond as of Tuesday afternoon, jail records show.