Son, His Wife Let Go After Arrest in Mother’s Death : Crime: Prosecutors say they lack evidence to hold pair. But Santa Ana police continue ‘to believe they’re responsible for the shooting’ and will pursue probe.

Just one day after being arrested on suspicion of murder, the son and daughter-in-law of a woman who had been mysteriously shot to death on her balcony were released Thursday when prosecutors acknowledged that they lacked enough evidence to hold them.

But Santa Ana Lt. Robert Helton said police continue “to believe they’re responsible for the shooting” and will seek evidence to charge the couple.

Santos Alvarez Roque and Maria Bruno Soto, both 24, had been arrested Wednesday on suspicion of homicide in the death of his mother, 55-year-old Valentina Roque, on Sunday. Alvarez had told police that she was hit by a bullet fired from the street as she stood on a wooden balcony outside their second-floor apartment.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Clyde Von Der Ahe said “there is insufficient evidence at this time” to bring a case against the couple but that the investigation is continuing.

Helton said physical evidence in the apartment and evidence from the autopsy indicate “that the shooting did occur inside the apartment.” They were the only two people in the apartment at the time, he said.

“We also know Alvarez does own a small-caliber handgun which we have not yet been able to locate,” he said. The only weapon recovered, Helton said, was a pellet gun, which could not have been used in the killing.

“Now we’re going to re-interview some people, re-interview the husband and wife and locate the handgun with which she was shot and file charges.”

Santa Ana Police Chief Paul M. Walters said investigators had probable cause to arrest the pair, and they had conferred with the district attorney’s office before making the arrest.

He said there was nothing unusual in making an arrest even without sufficient evidence to prosecute, saying arrests are “part of the investigative process.”

“You can’t wait until you’ve got an ironclad case before you arrest people,” he said, “because they can do all kinds of things to destroy the case for you” once they know they are under suspicion, he said.

“It’s not like Columbo, where you can follow them around for weeks,” he said.

Alvarez, who was released with his wife at about 1:30 p.m. from the Santa Ana Detention Facility, said police “were only doing their duty. But to suspect that I would kill my mother . . . no. It (a mother) is all one has in this life. I wanted the best for her, and she wanted the best for me.”

Roque’s body was released by the coroner’s office to a mortuary in Los Angeles, where most of the family members live. It will be flown to Mexico City today, according to Magda Maldonado, assistant manager of the mortuary. From there, it will be taken to a small town in Guerrero state for burial Saturday.

Alvarez and Soto plan to accompany the body.

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“I’ve asked my family to send me my things,” Alvarez said, holding a wet handkerchief. “We may not be back.”

Walters said that police knew the couple planned to go to Mexico and that it would not be a problem if they decide to rearrest them.

Police “don’t have any way to restrict them from leaving the U.S.,” Helton said. “They may choose not to come back, even if they said they would. We know that that is definitely a possibility.”

“We can get them back,” Walters said. “We do it all the time.”

Alvarez said: “All of this is an inexplicable thing. It is very painful for me to recount it. I want to forget it. To me, it was so very painful to see how my mother bled and agonized.”

His wife, who identified herself by her maiden name, Maria Soto Bruno, also said police “were in error.”

Alvarez said his mother had no life insurance and that he paid her $40 a week each to care for their 2-year-old. She had been living with the couple since she arrived from Mexico about eight months ago.

“I have a clear conscience. I would like for police to come out with proof. We told police everything we had to say on this.”

His wife said they and her mother-in-law “got along well. Why would we do such a thing?”

A short, wiry man, with black hair and a sparse beard and mustache, Alvarez denied police claims that there were inconsistencies in their accounts of the shooting.

“In no way were there contradictions. I didn’t say something here and then something else over there.”

Times staff writer Mark I. Pinsky contributed to this report.