The neighbors of the shooter who opened fire at Joel Osteen’s Lakewood Church before being fatally shot by police detailed years of harassment and threats their small, two-street community faced from her – claiming law enforcement and elected officials failed to adequately respond to their near constant outcry. 

Five women who lived near Genesse Ivonne Moreno in Conroe, Texas, a city more than 50 miles north of the Houston megachurch, described to FOX 26 Houston how Moreno tormented the usually close-knit neighborhood over the past four years. 

A next door neighbor, Jill, said Moreno repeatedly made false police reports that she and others were stalking Moreno and the seven-year-old boy said to be Moreno’s son. 

Moreno – who was originally from El Salvador, had a lengthy criminal record and previously used the name Jeffrey Escalante Moreno – brought the 7-year-old into the megachurch before opening fire, and the boy remains hospitalized in critical condition. 

“Four years I’ve been through hell. I have reported this, reported this, reported this, and it’s gone on deaf ears,” Jill told the outlet. “I’ve had psychological officers up here – Since they won’t answer their door, they won’t do anything. ‘Until she hurts you, there’s nothing we can do.’ So everybody keeps saying on all these big news stations ‘if you see something, say something.’ That’s bulls—. Because I’ve been through it. I’ve talked to everybody. I’ve probably called every one of your news stations trying to get someone to take this on.”

“No one would do anything. Nobody would call me back. And yet everyone’s still on these stations saying see something, say something. Nobody should have died. Nobody should have been hurt. This should have been handled years ago. And here we are again,” Jill added. 

“My daughter even called Conroe PD and raised cane with them and said, ‘Aren’t you guys going to do anything? Are you going to wait until I get the phone call that my mom is dead?” Jill told FOX 26. “It’s gotten very scary.” Two Thanksgivings ago, Jill said, her grandchildren were visiting from Minnesota and did not want to play in the backyard because Moreno has a very aggressive dog who rocked even their heavily plated fence, so they opted to do crafts on the driveway. That’s when Jill said Moreno took out a rifle to intimidate the children. 

“She wanted to scare my grandkids, so she went out and got the long rifle – ok, they’re from Minnesota, they shoot, they know what’s going on. Well, she went to the backyard, opened a blind that had never been opened before in four years, and was putting the rifle out of it. Like she was going to gun down on somebody,” Jill said. 

The neighborhood situation grew so bad, Giutta said, that she and a group of women once took a day off work and went to the courthouse. “There’s five of us, five families that are going through this. We decided we have to do something about it,” she said. “We talked to commissioners, we talked to elected officials, we waited. Some of the ladies talked to police. We waited for a police officer to call his headquarters, and he got somebody over from his headquarters that was talking about mental health. He stayed with us for a while. From there, he suggested we go to legal. From there, we went to the legal department. We got some information from them. We went into their conference room.” 

They also went to the property association and spoke with the manager and his attorney and sent letters, yet no significant action was taken, the women claimed. 

Though law enforcement have not disclosed a motive, police described Moreno as a “lone wolf” who was not associated with any groups. 

Court documents show Moreno’s ex-mother-in-law said she had sought advice from pastoral staff at Lakewood during a bitter child custody battle in 2022.