(February 13, 2009)

LAKE CORPUS CHRISTI--Law officers searched a brushy area around the Nueces River near Mathis today, looking for a weapon used in a shooting earlier this week. They said it stemmed from a bizarre lover's triangle in which a female suspect wound up shooting at a car.

The woman told police she threw a handgun over the Nueces River Bridge in the Lake Mathis area. They looked for hours for the weapon, but couldn't find it.
 

Merissa Rivera,18, led police around the bridge from the late morning until mid afternoon. She confessed to throwing a 38-caliber revolver as she drove towards Mathis on Monday night.

Rivera told them she did this just after shooting at a friend's ex boyfriend's car in Alice.

"She got a phone call from a friend saying a guy had hurt her," said Sgt. Johnny Perez of the Jim Wells County Sheriff's Department. "She was having problems with this guy. She wanted Merissa to go shoot up the car and teach him a lesson."

Game wardens and officers searched the brush near the river for the weapon. They brought in the dive team from the Corpus Christi Police Department, but decided not to get into the water to search. They also brought out a metal detector and bomb sniffing dog, but never found the gun.
 

Rivera is in the Jim Wells County Jail tonight, charged with deadly conduct. She's being held on a $30,000 bond.

--Manuel De La Rosa, Area 3 News, mdelarosa@kiiitv.com