Police report reveals Gonzales aide's history of self-harm threats before fatal self-immolation in Uvalde

Uvalde, Texas, police records released Monday reveal that Regina Santos-Aviles, a 35-year-old regional director for Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), had a documented history of self-harm threats well before she poured gasoline on herself and lit a match on Sept. 13, 2025. She died the following day. Her death was ruled a suicide.

The records paint a picture far more complex than the initial headlines suggested. And the political fallout is already reshaping a Republican primary.

What the Police Report Actually Says

First responders found Santos-Aviles on the front porch of her home with severe burn injuries. According to one officer's account, she told them she had discovered her husband was cheating on her with her best friend, and that she had doused herself in gasoline as a result. A second officer documented a slightly different version of the same claim: that her husband "is gay and is having an affair with her best friend."

Her estranged husband, Adrian Aviles, flatly denied both versions.

"Those allegations are completely false."

Adrian Aviles told The Post that the woman in question was female, a childhood friend, and that there was no sexual relationship between them. A former colleague of Santos-Aviles also rejected the claims.

But the deeper revelations in the police file concern Santos-Aviles' mental health, which appears to have been deteriorating long before that September night.

A Pattern of Crisis

Uvalde detective Gregory Villa documented Adrian Aviles' account of a prior incident in which Santos-Aviles contacted him while holding a firearm to her own head. Their son could be heard screaming during that episode, and police were dispatched. Aviles could not provide an exact date.

A friend also told officers that Santos-Aviles had possibly been admitted to a mental health hospital during her teenage years. Medications were recovered from the scene. Adrian Aviles told officers his late wife had been taking antidepressants and consuming alcohol regularly, sometimes mixing the two.

On the night she set herself on fire, Santos-Aviles sent a text message to Alfred Garza Jr., a friend of her husband's, that read, according to the New York Post, in part:

"Tell baller I'm setting myself on fire right now, so have fun raising our son."

That message was followed by a five-second video of her pouring gasoline on her body. Adrian Aviles was at Hotel Valencia watching UFC fights at the time, accompanied by a female friend whose identity he declined to provide. He learned what was happening through Garza's text.

This is a woman who was in crisis. The police record makes that unmistakably clear. Whatever else is true about this story, that fact deserves to be stated plainly and without exploitation.

The Gonzales Affair

The police report is only one layer of this story. The other involves Santos-Aviles' professional relationship with her boss.

In May 2024, Adrian Aviles discovered sexual text messages between his wife and Gonzales. The exchange reportedly included Gonzales requesting explicit photos and asking about his aide's preferred sexual positions. The couple separated three months later, in August 2024. They shared an 8-year-old son.

A former colleague who worked alongside Santos-Aviles in Gonzales' office for two years described the transformation bluntly:

"You have to understand that the affair she had with Gonzales led to sharp mental decline. It led to drinking, medication use, and insecurities."

The same ex-staffer noted that Santos-Aviles became consumed by fears that Adrian was going to leave her, specifically because of what had happened with Gonzales. Before the affair, the colleague described her as "normal, calm, and happy." Afterward, "the opposite of all those things."

None of this excuses any individual's actions. But it does suggest that a sitting congressman's sexual pursuit of his own staffer set off a chain of personal destruction that ended on a front porch in Uvalde.

The Political Reckoning

Gonzales has responded to the scandal not with contrition but with accusation. The three-term congressman claimed that Adrian Aviles and his attorney, Bobby Barrera, were attempting to "blackmail" him by disclosing the text messages. Barrera and Aviles had been seeking up to $300,000 under the Congressional Accountability Act for alleged sexual harassment and workplace retaliation on behalf of Santos-Aviles.

Calling a harassment claim "blackmail" is a choice. It is the kind of choice that tends to accelerate political consequences rather than prevent them.

Those consequences arrived Monday. Rep. Nancy Mace issued a statement that left no room for ambiguity:

"These text messages are disgusting and inexcusable. A Member of Congress. Harassing his own staffer in the middle of the night."

Rep. Lauren Boebert demanded Gonzales' resignation outright. Rep. Brandon Gill, a fellow Texas Republican, said he should withdraw from his re-election bid. Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged that "the allegations are clearly very serious" but urged that both House and state-level investigations be allowed to proceed.

The March 3 primary already pits Gonzales against YouTuber Brandon Herrera and other GOP candidates. The timing could not be worse for an incumbent trying to survive a scandal of this magnitude.

Accountability Is Not Optional

There is a version of this story where the political class circles the wagons, waits for the news cycle to turn, and lets the primary settle the matter quietly. That would be the wrong outcome.

Conservatives have spent years rightly demanding that institutions hold powerful people accountable for exploiting those beneath them. That principle does not come with a party exemption. When a Republican congressman sends sexually explicit messages to a staffer who works for him, the power imbalance is not ambiguous. It is structural. It is exactly the kind of workplace conduct that the Congressional Accountability Act exists to address.

The fact that Santos-Aviles had a history of mental health struggles does not diminish the seriousness of what Gonzales did. If anything, it compounds it. A person in a position of authority pursued a sexual relationship with a subordinate whose life then spiraled into substance abuse, marital collapse, and ultimately a death so violent it required first responders to extinguish flames before they could even speak to her.

Adrian Aviles told The Post previously that his wife "was a completely stable, mentally sane person before all of this." Whether that is fully accurate or whether her struggles predated the affair, the trajectory after May 2024 is not in dispute.

A woman is dead. An 8-year-old boy lost his mother. The police report is public. The text messages are public. The calls for resignation are bipartisan within the GOP itself.

Tony Gonzales owes his constituents, his colleagues, and that boy's family something more than the word "blackmail."