Speaker 1: You are now listening to True Murder, The most shocking
Speaker 1: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 1: written about them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker DTK.
Speaker 1: Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 1: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 1: your host journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 2: Good Evening. Melissa Ramirez, Claudine and Luerra, Giselda Hernandez, and
Speaker 2: Janelle Ortiz were four marginalized women striving to make ends
Speaker 2: meet as sex workers. They looked out for one another,
Speaker 2: but they would soon share a connection that none of
Speaker 2: them could have imagined. When Melissa was found dead, the
Speaker 2: other three women were on edge but assumed they were safe.
Speaker 2: Twelve days later, they too were dead, and police had
Speaker 2: detained an unlikely suspect, Juan David Ortiz, a ten year
Speaker 2: veteran of the US Customs and Border Protection, where he
Speaker 2: carried a badge, a service revolver and was entrusted to
Speaker 2: protect the community in which he eventually killed. From September
Speaker 2: three through September fifteenth, twenty eighteen, Ortees, a husband and
Speaker 2: doting father to three children, lured his victims into his
Speaker 2: white Dodge truck and drove them to the outskirts of town,
Speaker 2: where he violently executed them, leaving them dead or dying
Speaker 2: on the sides of dark rural roads. In this fast paced,
Speaker 2: electrifying TikTok Pulitzer Prize winning USA Today journalist Rick Jervis
Speaker 2: tells the gripping story of the four murders that shook
Speaker 2: the small border town of Laredo and the quest to
Speaker 2: unmask a cold, calculated killer who was hiding in plain sight.
Speaker 2: The Devil Behind the Badge is also a deeply human
Speaker 2: portrait of the four lives lost and an attempt to
Speaker 2: uncover what motivated or teases descent into darkness. Along the way,
Speaker 2: it raises serious questions about the border crisis, the abuse
Speaker 2: of law enforcement, and the challenges of a federal agency
Speaker 2: to police its own ranks. The book that we're featuring
Speaker 2: this evening is The Devil Behind the Badge, The horrifying
Speaker 2: twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer, with my
Speaker 2: special guest, USA Today journalist and author Rick Jervis. Welcome
Speaker 2: to the program, and thank you very much for this
Speaker 2: you Rick Jervis, thank you, Dan, thank you, and congratulations
Speaker 2: on your book. The devil behind the badge.
Speaker 3: Thanks Anne, appreciate it and great to be here.
Speaker 2: Let's start with as you do in part one introduced
Speaker 2: Pat and Nora Roth, the relax In and Laredo and
Speaker 2: San Bernardo Avenue as you do in your book.
Speaker 3: So this is where the bulk of the book takes place.
Speaker 3: It's a stretch called San Bernando Avenue and San Bernando
Speaker 3: is a is a several miles stretch of avenue running
Speaker 3: downtown Laredo, and it's kind of known as the red
Speaker 3: Light district. It's where a lot of the sex workers populate,
Speaker 3: it's where some of the drug dealing houses are. And
Speaker 3: paternor Roth like in my book, Patana Roth kind of
Speaker 3: introduces to Sabernando. That's an interesting character. He he's from Texas.
Speaker 3: Originally he marries he marries Nora, who is a Mexican immigrant,
Speaker 3: and together they basically move from McCallen, Texas to like Laredo,
Speaker 3: Texas and then Laredo. He is basically charged with running
Speaker 3: this like motel called the relax In, and the relax
Speaker 3: In is one of several of these kind of like
Speaker 3: low nightly rate motels along the avenue. It's a relax in.
Speaker 3: It's the Pan American Cords, it's the La Loma Mortel
Speaker 3: and Sotel, and so these are the motels where where
Speaker 3: a lot of these sex workers used to do their
Speaker 3: their transactions. And so Pat is basically brought in to
Speaker 3: like run this, to run this motel. He doesn't know
Speaker 3: what he's getting into. He thinks he's just kind of
Speaker 3: running a sort of straight shot, straight shot motel, and
Speaker 3: before long basically realizes that there's not only a lot
Speaker 3: of sex workers coming in and out of this sexual motel,
Speaker 3: but also, you know, a lot of drug dealing going on,
Speaker 3: a lot of people taking drugs on his property and
Speaker 3: starts to sort of clean it up and wants to
Speaker 3: sort of clean up there, to relax in and make
Speaker 3: it a more so legit business. So he kind of
Speaker 3: chases away a lot of the drug dealers, a lot
Speaker 3: of the drug users there, bans them from his property.
Speaker 3: But he takes a liking to for women, specifically Melissa Ramirez,
Speaker 3: Claudine Vuerda, Janelle Ortiz, and Shelley. Shelley come too, and
Speaker 3: these for women are all friends, they're all sex workers.
Speaker 3: Pat and Noor kind of overlooked that and let them
Speaker 3: stay at the motel. They basically charm him, and that's
Speaker 3: how we get an introduction to San Bonnando Avenue and
Speaker 3: these four women who are friends, and all of them
Speaker 3: have really bad drug addictions. Most of them are like
Speaker 3: addicted to heroin, black tar heroin, which is really popular
Speaker 3: there like in Norrato area, also crack the cane and
Speaker 3: other drugs. Through Pat's eyes, we basically learn about these
Speaker 3: four women and about all these things happening on San
Speaker 3: Bonnando Avenue.
Speaker 2: You introduce one of these four women, Melissa Ramerez, and
Speaker 2: you also introduce her friend Emily Verella and who stays
Speaker 2: at the Pan American Courts as you mentioned, another one
Speaker 2: of the hotels similar to the relax In and her
Speaker 2: mother Christina. So introduce Melissa Ramerez and her family and
Speaker 2: what happens. August thirty first, twenty and eighteen.
Speaker 3: Melissa Ramerez comes from a suburb of like Laredo, Carrio Bravo.
Speaker 3: It's it's just outside of Laredo. She's one of three
Speaker 3: children who are raised by Christina Benavidez, who is a
Speaker 3: Mexican national living in Texas. And Christina Bnavidas loves her
Speaker 3: kids raises them as good as she can low income family,
Speaker 3: but starting around middle school or so, Melissa starts to
Speaker 3: mingle with the wrong crowd. She has episodes of like
Speaker 3: anxiety and manic depression and starts to dabble into drugs
Speaker 3: taken xanax and other things like before you know it,
Speaker 3: she is she's she's basically self medicating because she has
Speaker 3: all of these anxieties. It turns out later we basically
Speaker 3: learned later that she was sexually assaulted when she was
Speaker 3: very little and that could have added to her I'm
Speaker 3: going to depression and like anxiety. She makes a friend
Speaker 3: there with basically now Emily is born Amelia Barella. He
Speaker 3: is she. She actually transitions into a woman later, but
Speaker 3: when Melissa first meets him, he's Emilio and they and
Speaker 3: they really become friends. Melio is also struggling with his
Speaker 3: own gender identity, his own sexuality, and it's actually Melissa
Speaker 3: who who helps him out and like tells him that
Speaker 3: it's okay to to feel the feelings that he's feeling,
Speaker 3: and sooner enough, Meelee becomes Emily and both of them
Speaker 3: become really good friends. They don't they don't ever finish
Speaker 3: high school, they basically drop out of high school and
Speaker 3: they start and they start hanging out together. Fortunately, both
Speaker 3: of them are are really struggling with really strong grug addictions,
Speaker 3: so they hit the Avenue, which is what a lot
Speaker 3: of people are there do. Once they have these really
Speaker 3: strong drug addictions, they go to San Bernardo. Melissa starts
Speaker 3: starts starts becoming a sex worker, as does Emily, and
Speaker 3: together they start hanging out. They stayed with one another
Speaker 3: at Pan American Courts, at the Pan American Courts motel,
Speaker 3: which is one of the other motels there on San Bernado,
Speaker 3: and they're living together when on in September twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: September third, twenty eighteenth to be exact, Melissa and Emily
Speaker 3: get into kind of a disagreement over over rent and
Speaker 3: over her lack of of sort of contribution towards the
Speaker 3: motel room. And like Melissa leaves in the middle of
Speaker 3: the night, and that's the last time Emily sees her alive.
Speaker 3: Her body years later found later that day in a
Speaker 3: rural stretch of road outside of Laredo in the northwest
Speaker 3: corner of Webb County. And that's the beginning of several
Speaker 3: murders where it starts to pop up around Web County.
Speaker 2: Let's go back to just just before September twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: You're right of August thirty first, and Melissa's mother, Christina,
Speaker 2: happens to meet because Melissa's at her mother's house and
Speaker 2: involved with her mother and her family despite her prostitution,
Speaker 2: Christina meets a man that is new to her daughter
Speaker 2: named David Garza. And you write that Christina at that
Speaker 2: time felt something was wrong when she met this man.
Speaker 3: Just a couple of days before, like Melissa disappears and
Speaker 3: ends up, you know, murdered on the side of the road.
Speaker 3: She actually comes home to her mom's house in Rio Bravo.
Speaker 3: Her mom lives in a like a trailer, and like
Speaker 3: Melissa brings home this person that she introduces to her
Speaker 3: mother just as a friend, David Gottison. He's significantly older
Speaker 3: than she is, like at the time, Melissa's twenty nine
Speaker 3: years old. The man is in his fifties or late forties.
Speaker 3: He comes in, He comes into the trailer, sits down
Speaker 3: on the couch and doesn't say a word, and Christina
Speaker 3: Benavitez is unnerved by him. He feels like like something's off.
Speaker 3: It's like something's off with him, something strange. She finally
Speaker 3: like makes some sort of introduce himself to her, and
Speaker 3: she does, but he doesn't say a lot. He just
Speaker 3: kind of sits on the couch quietly as Melissa, you know,
Speaker 3: sort of continues to get ready in another room, and
Speaker 3: when she finally comes out, they basically leave together. She
Speaker 3: tells her mom not to worry, and they drive off
Speaker 3: in David's truck. It's all very strange to to like Christina,
Speaker 3: and it lingers in her mind for quite some time,
Speaker 3: for like a number of days afterwards, because that's the
Speaker 3: last time that she would see her daughter alive.
Speaker 2: Let's get back to this crime scene where you say
Speaker 2: someone discovers this body. What is found that the crime
Speaker 2: scene that is of particular interest to police.
Speaker 3: So at the crime scene, her her body is is
Speaker 3: found both first first by a passerby just a someone
Speaker 3: who happens to be in the area notices Melissa's body
Speaker 3: like on the side of the road. And then later
Speaker 3: the person knocks on a knocks on a door. Actually,
Speaker 3: let me let me back up there. The body is
Speaker 3: found on the side of the road by a passer.
Speaker 3: By the passer by alerts one of the neighbors there
Speaker 3: who calls police. Police is actually police, say that they're
Speaker 3: on their way. Since it's outside of the Laredo city limits.
Speaker 3: It's the Web County Sheriff's office, which where chances is
Speaker 3: the actual call. As they're waiting for the for the
Speaker 3: sheriff's deputies to show up, another car comes, gets kind
Speaker 3: of close, pulls up, and then does kind of a
Speaker 3: three point turn and drives away. Now this actually strikes
Speaker 3: as strange to the neighbor and the passer by there,
Speaker 3: and the passer by waiting for deputies there, they kind
Speaker 3: of sense that that might somehow be kind of related
Speaker 3: to this incident. So what they do is that they
Speaker 3: get into the car, they kind of follow the car around,
Speaker 3: jot down the car's license plate it's a truck actually,
Speaker 3: and when the deputies show up a couple of minutes later,
Speaker 3: they basically pass on this information saying, yeah, there's this
Speaker 3: body which we found on the side of the road
Speaker 3: that they would later learn belongs to Melissa Amidez. And
Speaker 3: by the way, there's this car that came up close
Speaker 3: to the close close to the body and drove off,
Speaker 3: and that that information is actually related to them, and
Speaker 3: so as the deputies are at the scene kind of
Speaker 3: looking at things on the scene, they get this information
Speaker 3: and this truck's license plate as one of its early leads.
Speaker 2: Now you introduced two central characters to this story of
Speaker 2: Federico Captain Federico Calderon and Ernesto Salinas. You talk about
Speaker 2: this person that was their first lead, their first suspect,
Speaker 2: and it happens to be this police officer. So there
Speaker 2: is some explaining to do on his behalf before we
Speaker 2: get to the identity vocation of this body that was found.
Speaker 3: That's right. So Captain card Didon is the head of
Speaker 3: the Criminal Investigations Division at the Webb County Sheriff's Office.
Speaker 3: He is he is basically called out to the scene,
Speaker 3: and Texas Ranger E. J. Selenas is also called out.
Speaker 3: Texas Rangers are basically involved. Texas Rangers are basically called
Speaker 3: out to like any high profile rhymes along the border,
Speaker 3: whether it be murders, kidnaps, things in that nature, and
Speaker 3: so so it's like fairly common for e. J. Selenas
Speaker 3: to be called out to something like this. Captain cad
Speaker 3: Dodon has actually worked in the past with e. J. Selenas,
Speaker 3: and so they both know each other, they work well together,
Speaker 3: and they're on the scene of something which which very
Speaker 3: clearly looks like it's a murder. First of all, the
Speaker 3: sort of position of the gunshot wounds seem to be
Speaker 3: all in the head and neck area area, so it
Speaker 3: looks like a sort of execution style killing. There are
Speaker 3: forty caliber shells I at the scene too, so it's
Speaker 3: pretty clear to them early on that this was a murder.
Speaker 3: And so they had this one, this this one shred
Speaker 3: of information about this truck that had come and then
Speaker 3: pulled and then pulled away, and so they and so
Speaker 3: they tracked down the actual the actual license plate to
Speaker 3: that vehicle and it turns out that it actually belongs
Speaker 3: to a Lato police officer. And so they go to
Speaker 3: the police officer's house. His name is last name, and
Speaker 3: they they basically go to his house with a show
Speaker 3: of force. There's several of them, there's a there's a
Speaker 3: whole team of them that show up thinking that this
Speaker 3: this might be the actual gunment involved in this. And
Speaker 3: to his surprise, I'd say, you know, sees that there's
Speaker 3: this whole swat, this whole swat team of officers showing
Speaker 3: up to his house. Him and his wife are driven
Speaker 3: away to a to a substation of the Sheriff's office
Speaker 3: and interviewed, and I said, basically, basically explains that that
Speaker 3: that that was him earlier today, and that he had
Speaker 3: been there with his with his uh stepdaughter and his
Speaker 3: and his other daughter, and they were what was a
Speaker 3: Monday morning, happened to be labor day. They were off
Speaker 3: from from work in school, and they were just driving
Speaker 3: around looking at like different properties. He never saw the
Speaker 3: actual body, didn't know that there was a body there,
Speaker 3: so just turned around and left, and they looked into
Speaker 3: his story. It checked out, and so that was one
Speaker 3: of what would become several kinds of dead ends that
Speaker 3: investigators had. So they still had a body, they still
Speaker 3: had a murder, and they didn't have any suspects at
Speaker 3: that point.
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Speaker 2: Getting back, this lead turns into the second lead they
Speaker 2: have to investigate, and that this person named David Garza.
Speaker 2: So they have a phone number, apparently they have some contact.
Speaker 2: What do they do in regards of investigating David Garza.
Speaker 3: Yes, so after they basically tell Christina Benavidez, after they
Speaker 3: basically revealed her that her daughter has has been murdered
Speaker 3: and that was a terrible moment. By the way, she
Speaker 3: actually told me about that moment again when like detectives
Speaker 3: show up to her trailer and tell her that and
Speaker 3: like Melissa Amidis again, I understand Melissa Admittaz was her life.
Speaker 3: She understood that she had dabbled into sex work and
Speaker 3: that she had this really sort of debilitating drug addiction.
Speaker 3: But she never gave up on her and always was
Speaker 3: working hard to get her off the streets and to
Speaker 3: and to help her out. And so when when she's
Speaker 3: told that she was brutally murdered, it just it just
Speaker 3: completely turned her world completely upside down. But so she's
Speaker 3: so she's taken back to the substation and like interviewed,
Speaker 3: and the first thing which she thinks of when investigators
Speaker 3: are asking her about her daughter is this man who
Speaker 3: had showed up to her trailer just a couple of
Speaker 3: days before, who had acted strange and I didn't say
Speaker 3: a lot, so he and so she happened to have
Speaker 3: his phone number because that's how she was communicating with
Speaker 3: her daughter was through this man. And so she passes
Speaker 3: along this information, this person's name and his phone number,
Speaker 3: and so David Goddessa becomes investigator's second lead suspect.
Speaker 2: So what happens as a result is he cleared? And
Speaker 2: how do they proceed with David Garza?
Speaker 3: So after getting Goddess's information, they they call him up,
Speaker 3: they get his address, and then they like pay him
Speaker 3: a visit and they go out to his house talk
Speaker 3: about and they talk it through with him. He actually admits, yes,
Speaker 3: that he knew Melissa Amde. He claims that they were
Speaker 3: only friends, that he wasn't a client, but that he
Speaker 3: did know her, and that he was with her and
Speaker 3: like around a couple of days before her murder, and
Speaker 3: that in fact, like the day of her murder, that Monday,
Speaker 3: September third, he was out of town. He's a truck
Speaker 3: driver and like he was out of town and basically
Speaker 3: on a job elsewhere. So they look into it. They
Speaker 3: check GPS quordinates both of his phone, something on his truck,
Speaker 3: and then it all checks out. His story checks out,
Speaker 3: and so he's actually clear as a sort of potential
Speaker 3: suspect also, so they're back to square one.
Speaker 2: Before we talk about that, Selenis goes back to the
Speaker 2: relax in to talk to Pat about things going on
Speaker 2: at the relax in. But one thing that we hadn't
Speaker 2: mentioned is that at that scene there was found forty
Speaker 2: caliber bullets. But they were especially interesting in it. They
Speaker 2: were jacketed hollow point bullets. Now, what was the these
Speaker 2: type of bullets typical of in law enforcement?
Speaker 3: That's right, they basically found several forty caliber cells. They're
Speaker 3: at the scene of the crime, and they weren't only
Speaker 3: jacketed hollow point jacketed cells, but they were of this
Speaker 3: brand called Federal and Federal brand bullets are widely known
Speaker 3: by These Federal bullets are widely used by law enforcement agencies,
Speaker 3: and the reason why they're mostly used by law enforcement
Speaker 3: agencies is because they're more expensive than other brands, and
Speaker 3: so it's like typical for law enforcement agencies, whether it's
Speaker 3: federal law enforcement agencies such as Border Patrol or FBI,
Speaker 3: or local law enforcement agencies to use these Federal brand bullets.
Speaker 3: God that own the serf's office investigator knows this, recognize
Speaker 3: that as federal law enforcement recognizes this Federal brand as
Speaker 3: something used by law enforcement agencies, so that so that
Speaker 3: also becomes a lead. And they realized that they may
Speaker 3: be were they may be looking for somebody who is
Speaker 3: in law enforcement.
Speaker 2: You talk that Selenis goes and talks to pat at
Speaker 2: the relax in and they talked to a bunch of
Speaker 2: Melissa's acquaintances and friends, and then Selenas decides to call
Speaker 2: the South Texas Southern Texas Border Intelligence Center or acronym
Speaker 2: b C, and there was a person named Juan David Ortiz,
Speaker 2: a US Border Patrol supervisory agent, and you write a
Speaker 2: rising star at the agency. He was also there for
Speaker 2: that phone call, straining to overhear the details of that
Speaker 2: phone call.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So this big is Border Intelligence Center. This is
Speaker 3: something which is housed basically at the US Border Patrol
Speaker 3: Laredo Sector headquarters, which is right in downtown Laredo, and
Speaker 3: it's on the second story of the offices there, and
Speaker 3: it's this shared office space with the intention that you
Speaker 3: basically you basically place representatives of all the different agencies there,
Speaker 3: the Webb County Sheriff's Office, Laredo Police Department, Border Patrol, FBI.
Speaker 3: You get them all in one area so that they're
Speaker 3: able to share all information leading cases along the border.
Speaker 3: And they commonly share different different information about different cases
Speaker 3: along the border, whether it's sort of pursuing cartel cartel officials,
Speaker 3: or it's drug running or kidnappings or murders, and so
Speaker 3: in this in this Border information center, there is this
Speaker 3: supervisory agent named Juan David Ortiz. He's kind of a
Speaker 3: rising star like at the agency. He had he had
Speaker 3: been there a number of years and his he works
Speaker 3: in a supervisory role and so he has other border
Speaker 3: patrol agents under him. So when Selena's makes the call,
Speaker 3: one of the people who who are there is one
Speaker 3: David Ortiz, and he has an interest in basically overhearing
Speaker 3: what is happening with that case.
Speaker 2: You take us to part two and Eric Aguilar and
Speaker 2: he gets a text message from his navy pow, this
Speaker 2: David Ortiz, but he calls them his nickname is Doc.
Speaker 2: He is alarmed because it seems like there's some signs
Speaker 2: of substance abuse from his friend. And he had apparently
Speaker 2: Ortes had confessed to Aguilar that the death and misery
Speaker 2: witnessed each day on the border was gnawing at him
Speaker 2: and stressing him completely. So they both served in Iraq
Speaker 2: together and Aguilar urges Ortes to get professional help. Then
Speaker 2: you take us to the background of this David Ortes
Speaker 2: and how he was raised.
Speaker 3: In his background, Yeah, so Juan David Ortiz, who was
Speaker 3: thirty five at the time of the murders, he's he
Speaker 3: is from South Texas. He was actually born and raised
Speaker 3: in Brownville, Texas, which is the southernmost city in Texas
Speaker 3: running a border with Mexico. There. He comes from comes
Speaker 3: from sort of Mexican ancestry. He's second and third generation
Speaker 3: Mexican American. He's raised in Brownsville by a single mom
Speaker 3: with three sisters. He's raised very sort of devout Christian.
Speaker 3: His family is is some like evangelical Pentecostal, so very
Speaker 3: so very devout Christian. And high school he's he's very
Speaker 3: active on the swim team, but he also leads the
Speaker 3: the high school Bible study group. And you know, talk
Speaker 3: to friends who basically knew him grewing, who basically knew
Speaker 3: him growing up, and they all they all basically they
Speaker 3: all basically describe him as his really straight laced student.
Speaker 3: Where some of the other students wanted to go party
Speaker 3: and maybe cross over the bridge into like Matamotos, Mexico
Speaker 3: and had some drinks. David Ortiz always basically declined that
Speaker 3: and like they didn't want to go and and dead
Speaker 3: like organized Bible study groups like his house. So he too,
Speaker 3: friends around him was this very sort of devout guy,
Speaker 3: good student. Heaverally involved in school. But you know, it
Speaker 3: turns out we basically learned later he he he tells
Speaker 3: therapists and counselors years years later that there was trouble
Speaker 3: at home also that his mom told him when he
Speaker 3: was around middle school or high school age that his
Speaker 3: father had actually committed suicide, and that during his time
Speaker 3: in home that his mom was possibly abused by like boyfriends.
Speaker 3: And so it was it was somewhat turbulent home scene.
Speaker 3: And so in two thousand and one, David Ortiz joins
Speaker 3: the actual military. He joins the Navy. He's only eighteen
Speaker 3: years old, So this happens right after high school, and
Speaker 3: it happens two months before the actual attacks on ninety eleven, yes,
Speaker 3: and so he is attached to like a Marines unit
Speaker 3: and is deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom in two thousand
Speaker 3: and three, where he is he basically works as a
Speaker 3: as a as a Navy corman, which is like a medic,
Speaker 3: and so he is on the front lines watching a
Speaker 3: lot of the stuff which basically went down. There has
Speaker 3: some gruesome scenes which which he's witnessed to, including a
Speaker 3: couple of Iraqi men who were caught in an explosion
Speaker 3: and basically burned alive. He was there to try to
Speaker 3: treat them. He definitely sees some stuff. He basically kind
Speaker 3: of experiences things, but then comes back to the US
Speaker 3: and in two thousand and nine joins Border Patrol. It's
Speaker 3: a very natural step from him coming from Texas, coming
Speaker 3: from the actual border, and he has a sort of
Speaker 3: glowing military resume at that point, So he could have
Speaker 3: went a number of different places, could have gotten a
Speaker 3: job at a sheriff's office also, but he basically chooses
Speaker 3: to go to Border Patrol based first in Catula, Texas,
Speaker 3: and then later is moved to Laredo in twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3: And all the early signs say that he was a
Speaker 3: really competent worker. People who actually knew him then said
Speaker 3: he was really focused on his work and was kind
Speaker 3: of a rising star. And he's transferred over to the
Speaker 3: Joint Intelligence Center right around the same time, around twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: You talk about that in twenty seventeen, he was assigned
Speaker 2: to the Border Patrol's Target Enforcement Unit, But tell us
Speaker 2: what these specially trained agents focused on and as a
Speaker 2: result got to witness and experience.
Speaker 3: That actually seems to be a seminal turning point for him.
Speaker 3: He gets attached to the targeted he gets attached to
Speaker 3: the Target Enforcement Unit, which basically is like it's like
Speaker 3: a task force, which is focused on breaking up cartel
Speaker 3: rings in the area, on raiding drug houses, rating our
Speaker 3: prostitution rings, and so he is attached to this unit.
Speaker 3: It does really well with it and is and is
Speaker 3: basically promoted as it's supervisor. So he basically is leading
Speaker 3: this this target enforcement unit and is given a lot
Speaker 3: of leeway to basically go through Laredo's most most crime
Speaker 3: ridden areas, so like to try to do raids and
Speaker 3: get and get intel on different people. And this gives
Speaker 3: him his his first his first introduction, his first insight
Speaker 3: to this underbelly of Solaredo. So he starts to learn
Speaker 3: about where all the sex workers work. He becomes really
Speaker 3: intimate with some Bernando Avenue, which is like the main
Speaker 3: drag where a lot of this activity has actually taken place,
Speaker 3: and so he is really learning about where about where
Speaker 3: all the drug houses are, where like where all the
Speaker 3: sex workers work, and basically becomes really really familiar with
Speaker 3: all of this activity through this unit.
Speaker 2: You describe the budget of the patrol border patrol and
Speaker 2: also the importance but also just the nature of how
Speaker 2: many employees and the expansion after two thousand and one
Speaker 2: and nine to eleven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so after the attacks on ninety eleven, Border Patrol
Speaker 3: goes through this huge hiring surge. They're basically tasked with
Speaker 3: the newly formed only Insecurity to bring in as many
Speaker 3: as twenty thousand agents to the agency, and so they
Speaker 3: go on a really aggressive hiring searche and try to
Speaker 3: fill its ranks beginning in about two in about two
Speaker 3: thousand and two all the way through about twenty ten
Speaker 3: or so, so for about about eight years or so,
Speaker 3: they're trying to bring in as many people as possible,
Speaker 3: and so one divid Ortis is actually hired during the
Speaker 3: tail end of this. Some of the immigrant advocates who
Speaker 3: work along the border are basically complaining that like, in
Speaker 3: the rush to bring in as many border agents as
Speaker 3: like possible, that the agency tended to basically overlook a
Speaker 3: lot of the faults that some of these agents had,
Speaker 3: that they weren't as careful in betting them. That it
Speaker 3: was just like hire them as quickly as possible just
Speaker 3: to actually fill the ranks. For instance, they basically they
Speaker 3: basically point out that none of the agents were given
Speaker 3: light detector tests going in, and that's something which is
Speaker 3: actually installed later. There wasn't any of that happening. There
Speaker 3: was just a big rush to hire a lot of agents,
Speaker 3: and in that sweep, Juan David Ortiz is basically hired.
Speaker 2: You talk about David Orchies at twenty eighteen is experiencing
Speaker 2: some mental issues and is seeing a therapist.
Speaker 3: So, starting around in January or February of twenty eighteen
Speaker 3: is when friends and colleagues and family members really like
Speaker 3: start to notice that David Ortiz is like experiencing this
Speaker 3: kind of mental decline. He is complaining to a therapist
Speaker 3: that he's having headaches, he's having nightmares, he's feeling very paranoid.
Speaker 2: To.
Speaker 3: The point that he's getting up in the middle of
Speaker 3: the night and checking and re re checking all of
Speaker 3: the doors of his home. At this point in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 3: he's living in sort of north in northeast Laredo with
Speaker 3: his wife, Daniella, and their three children, and so he's
Speaker 3: waking up in the middle of night paranoid looking for
Speaker 3: like checking all of these doors. He on the advice
Speaker 3: of a friend, he goes and visits the local BA
Speaker 3: office there and the BA basically connects them with a therapist,
Speaker 3: and a therapist starts to prescribe a cocktail of all
Speaker 3: these psychotropic medication to them to try to ease his
Speaker 3: PTSD ethics nightmares. But you know, friends actually see him
Speaker 3: taking some of these pills but also taking them like
Speaker 3: at the same time that he's also drinking copious amounts
Speaker 3: of beer and alcohol, so he's mixing a lot of
Speaker 3: these medications with alcohol. He's basically complaining of having blackouts
Speaker 3: of like driving trying to trying trying to drive drive
Speaker 3: home from a night out and ending up like in
Speaker 3: a parking lot and waking up and not and not
Speaker 3: exactly knowing where where he is. Coworkers also noticed sort
Speaker 3: of erratic behavior. They tell like investigators later that they
Speaker 3: notice him that that that he's bragging about knowing where
Speaker 3: some of the sex workers are and that he is,
Speaker 3: and that he brags to at least one colleague that
Speaker 3: like he's picking up women on the side when his
Speaker 3: wife is out of town.
Speaker 2: But Jesus has an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Now at the same time that this David Ortiz is
Speaker 2: everyone knows that he's experiencing some some problems, but he's
Speaker 2: still not His job as a order patrol supervisory agent
Speaker 2: is not affected whatsoever. And you introduce two characters. You
Speaker 2: introduce this Edgar Reels, which is friends with Erica Pina,
Speaker 2: and you talk about that he knows what she does
Speaker 2: and is a boyfriend pimp slash, I'm not sure, but
Speaker 2: they do. You write about them talking and meeting this
Speaker 2: new client which is offering to pay her far more
Speaker 2: money than her typical clients.
Speaker 3: Erica Kenya is one of the sex workers that work
Speaker 3: along something on the avenue. She's actually friends with like
Speaker 3: Malis's other medias. She's friends, we're clotting well ant and
Speaker 3: some of these other women excuse me, knows them well,
Speaker 3: so she she is kind of a known entity around there,
Speaker 3: like in those parts, and it's not uncommon, you know.
Speaker 3: I actually spoke with some of the sex workers who
Speaker 3: work out there later told me that, like it's not
Speaker 3: uncommon for them to have dates and to have clients
Speaker 3: who are border patrol agents or sheriff's deputies, right, police officers.
Speaker 3: Law enforcement is just is just like part of the
Speaker 3: game down there. Because there's so many of them along
Speaker 3: the border, that is just natural that some of them
Speaker 3: deviate into these practices. And so Eric Capanna tells Edgar
Speaker 3: Rios Edgar is her boyfriend, but also just a sort
Speaker 3: of confidant and somebody she's like really close to. And
Speaker 3: Edgar basically knows Erica Panna's job, he knows like what
Speaker 3: she does for a living, basically accepts it. So Ericapanna
Speaker 3: tells Edgarrios that she met this client who is like
Speaker 3: rat he's a border patrol agent. He is. He pays
Speaker 3: really well and like he's really nice to her. It's
Speaker 3: almost like an it's almost like an ideal client. He's
Speaker 3: married with kids, which all makes him an ideal client
Speaker 3: because then there's there's there's no chance of getting attached
Speaker 3: because everybody knows that he's married. So and this client
Speaker 3: is David Ortiz and so, and so she starts to
Speaker 3: see him kind of regularly and sort of repeatedly, and
Speaker 3: so they have sort of rendezvous in his truck. He
Speaker 3: even brings her back to his place a couple of times.
Speaker 2: Also, you take us to September third, two thousand and eighteen,
Speaker 2: and you say that Erica considered Melissa a friend. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about Melissa and where she's at on September third,
Speaker 2: twenty and eighteen with her drug addiction and where she
Speaker 2: is staying and her just a predicament. At that time, Melissa.
Speaker 3: Themid Is is in a very bad place. She is
Speaker 3: she is overcome by her drug addiction. She is running
Speaker 3: out of money for her clients are not that are
Speaker 3: not that steady. So she's staying with Emily Eda, who
Speaker 3: is her friend, and they're like staying at the American courts.
Speaker 3: They get into a big fight over like money. Emily
Speaker 3: kicks her out and says, you know, you gotta you
Speaker 3: basically have to sort of contribute if if you want
Speaker 3: to continue staying here. And even more than that, Emily
Speaker 3: was recently arrested on drugs and prostitution charges and is
Speaker 3: trying to try to clean up. Actually he's trying to
Speaker 3: like stay sober. She has to meet with a with
Speaker 3: a sort of probation officer and doesn't want any drugs
Speaker 3: like in her in her living space, and like Melissa
Speaker 3: Ramirez violates that and ends up smoking some some crack rocks,
Speaker 3: like in their apartment, in their hotel suite, and so
Speaker 3: for all of these reasons, Emily kicks her out. They
Speaker 3: have a big falling out, and so, like Melissa is
Speaker 3: walking down the street in San Bernardo trying to figure
Speaker 3: out what to do trying to even figure out where
Speaker 3: to stay. So she didn't even have a place to
Speaker 3: like stay at that point. And so as she's walking
Speaker 3: down the street of Hong Kong's David Ortiz, he pulls over,
Speaker 3: asks if she wants to ride, and she gets in
Speaker 3: the truck with him.
Speaker 2: You write about this interesting phenomena. While he is dealing
Speaker 2: with Melissa, he also sees Erica walk into a drug house.
Speaker 2: Can you explain?
Speaker 3: So the first thing that sort of Melissa wants to
Speaker 3: do when she gets picked up is obviously and this
Speaker 3: is something which is very calm, and she basically asks,
Speaker 3: she asked David Ortiz if he's willing to take her
Speaker 3: to a drug house, like help her buy some some drugs.
Speaker 3: He complies and says yes, and so they basically drive
Speaker 3: over to a sort of known drug house there in
Speaker 3: central Laredo. As like Melissa's walking in, Erica Penna, who
Speaker 3: is there to pick up her own supplies like walking
Speaker 3: out and notices that Melissa is with is with David Ortiz,
Speaker 3: And there's a minute there that like everybody sees each
Speaker 3: other and knows what's what's actually going on, and then
Speaker 3: everybody goes there like separate ways. Melissa comes back, gets
Speaker 3: back in the actual truck with David Ortiz and they
Speaker 3: drive off.
Speaker 2: You introduce another character again essential to this story, Claudine
Speaker 2: Luerra tell us a little bit about her background.
Speaker 3: Claudine Luera is one of the older people who are
Speaker 3: populating Sambernando Avenue. She comes from a middle class family
Speaker 3: there in Laredo. She has several sisters. She also has
Speaker 3: several children. At like forty two years old, she is
Speaker 3: one of the older women who are working as sex
Speaker 3: workers there. But she has this really interesting background where
Speaker 3: she's she starts off, you know, like really good in
Speaker 3: school and is doing and is doing good in school again,
Speaker 3: she basically mixes up with some of the wrong people.
Speaker 3: One of her boyfriends, which which she apparently falls in
Speaker 3: love with, basically basically introduces her to Heroin, gets her,
Speaker 3: gets her really hooked. She has children, not through him,
Speaker 3: but through other men. She has two sets of twins,
Speaker 3: and some of those children are are like autistic, some
Speaker 3: worse than others. So she has a really challenging single
Speaker 3: motherhood where she's trying to she's trying to raise all
Speaker 3: of these children. Person who has who had initially introduced
Speaker 3: her to Rugg is like in and out of prison
Speaker 3: and is mostly out of the picture. Her oldest daughter, Sierra,
Speaker 3: is like trying to help as much as possible, but
Speaker 3: she's also trying to just go to school and just
Speaker 3: be a kid, and there's all this sort of commotion happening. Claudine,
Speaker 3: unfortunately is on and off drugs and she can't seem
Speaker 3: to shake it. Eventually loses her children. County workers come
Speaker 3: and basically remove the children from her because she's she's
Speaker 3: she's showing all of these obvious signs of drug use,
Speaker 3: and so once once the children are actually taken away
Speaker 3: from her, that's when she really starts a spiral and
Speaker 3: starts to get more and more heavily into drugs. The
Speaker 3: whole time her family is like trying to get her
Speaker 3: off the streets, is like trying to have her clean up.
Speaker 3: It's just really hard. Once the once once like Heroin,
Speaker 3: takes a hold of her, doesn't it doesn't really let
Speaker 3: go easily, and so Claudie becomes one of the people
Speaker 3: alongside Bernando, who is just trying to survive, just trying
Speaker 3: to get enough to ease her drug addiction.
Speaker 2: You write that in September of twenty eighteen, that Claudine
Speaker 2: hears of Melissa's death and yet still working the San
Speaker 2: Bernardo strip.
Speaker 3: Claudine is, you know, it's basically in and out a
Speaker 3: lot of these these actual motels. I basically spoke with
Speaker 3: a motel owner who runs one of the motels there,
Speaker 3: who basically remember Claudine well. She said Claudine was like,
Speaker 3: was really nice and was different from some of the
Speaker 3: other women. She was older, appeared to be more more
Speaker 3: like educated, had a old, old soul sense of self
Speaker 3: about her, was really or retrospective or really kind of
Speaker 3: introspective in like a lot of ways. And she and
Speaker 3: she basically remembers Claudine coming in shortly after like Melissa's
Speaker 3: murder and being being really struck by it. Her and
Speaker 3: her and her like Melissa, were really close. Claudine came
Speaker 3: to came to field. She was kind of like the
Speaker 3: older sister to like Melissa and some of the other younger,
Speaker 3: younger girls in the avenue. And so when Melissa's body
Speaker 3: turns up, Plaudine is like really shaken. She can't believe
Speaker 3: that she's been killed, but at the same time, she
Speaker 3: doesn't she doesn't leave the streets. This motel owner basically
Speaker 3: warrants or urges her to like stay off the street,
Speaker 3: and Claudine tells her that she'll be fine, that she
Speaker 3: knows how to look after herself.
Speaker 2: That Jesus as an opportunity to stop to hear these messages.
Speaker 2: Let's fast forward somewhat to September twelfth, and David Ortiz
Speaker 2: is heading to his favorite Samberonardo strip and he picks
Speaker 2: up Claudine and like usual, drives her to score some heroin.
Speaker 2: And as they drive, Claudine decides to bring up Melissa's murder.
Speaker 2: Tell us about this very vivid dialogue and scene in
Speaker 2: this book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was one of the most surprising twists in
Speaker 3: the book, where that or in this overall story and
Speaker 3: that David Ortiz picks up Claudine just like he had
Speaker 3: picked up Melissa before, just like he had picked up
Speaker 3: Erica before. And he picks her up and he's driving
Speaker 3: her around, drives her to score some black tark heroin,
Speaker 3: and then Claudine, let's just just basically out of nowhere,
Speaker 3: basically suggests that she would like to go see the
Speaker 3: the actual scene where Melissa Ray Mirrors was murdered. And
Speaker 3: David Ortiz cannot believe what he's here, and he kind
Speaker 3: of turns her and said, and it's like what he goes, yeah,
Speaker 3: I really would would like to see where where they
Speaker 3: found actual Melissa's body. And so they start driving out there,
Speaker 3: and so David Ortiz tells her, yeah, I think I
Speaker 3: know where it is, and so he and so he
Speaker 3: like starts driving her out there, and halfway out there,
Speaker 3: it just dawns on, like Claudine, that she is being
Speaker 3: driven around by the actual murderer, and it just hits
Speaker 3: her and she's touching it's you. It's you. You're the one,
Speaker 3: You're the killer and our first David Ortiz tells her,
Speaker 3: you know, to just shut up, that she doesn't know
Speaker 3: what like what she's talking about, but like Claudine is,
Speaker 3: it is really insistent as almost as as she has
Speaker 3: this sort of realization hit her. And so David Ortiz
Speaker 3: ends up driving her not to the exact spot, but
Speaker 3: somewhere nearby those are two like and stops the car
Speaker 3: like on the side of the road, tells Claudine to
Speaker 3: get out of the car. Claudine walks a couple of steps.
Speaker 3: David Ortiz picks out his handgun and shoots her several times.
Speaker 2: Now you take us to September thirteenth, and the truck
Speaker 2: driver notices the person lying on the road. The woman
Speaker 2: is still breathing incredibly and he calls nine one one
Speaker 2: and troopers arrive.
Speaker 3: Laudine is the only victim of these four victims who
Speaker 3: who was actually still alive, and so they and so
Speaker 3: she and so she was shot several times, like in
Speaker 3: the head area, but manages to survive. And so the
Speaker 3: Fuick driver passes by, sees her, calls nine one one,
Speaker 3: and ambulance shows up, picks her up, and takes her
Speaker 3: to the hospital. She's not she's not really coherent. She's
Speaker 3: she's she's like not seeing anything like makes any sense.
Speaker 3: But she is struggling, like to the point that they
Speaker 3: almost have to strap her down because she's like thrashing
Speaker 3: her hands around and like telling them to like let
Speaker 3: her go. So they finally calm her down. They get
Speaker 3: to the hospital, but unfortunately, she passes away shortly after
Speaker 3: getting to the hospital. And initially some of the some
Speaker 3: of the investigators think that it might be what they
Speaker 3: call it an autopad, which is an auto pedestrian, which
Speaker 3: is when a car just just like hits a actual pedestrian.
Speaker 3: But the actual doctor at the hospital tells some of
Speaker 3: the deputies there that they found bullet holes like in
Speaker 3: her head, that it's not an autopad, it's actually a shooting.
Speaker 2: So now how do Calderan and Salinas proceed. They realize
Speaker 2: that this He gets a call, and so there's a
Speaker 2: connection between these bodies and the way they're killed, then
Speaker 2: the shell casings that are left, and so how do
Speaker 2: they proceed, and how does David or Keys proceed.
Speaker 3: Then all is called up to the scene. He's basically
Speaker 3: told First first he's told that it looks like an autopad,
Speaker 3: and so he doesn't think it's even worth him going
Speaker 3: out there. But then the same the same like deputy
Speaker 3: calls them up a couple of minutes later and says, no,
Speaker 3: actually it's not an autoped it's a shooting. And so
Speaker 3: now he realizes that that this is serious. So he
Speaker 3: gets back, He gets back in his truck, rites out
Speaker 3: to the scene, and he's coming over the scene. The
Speaker 3: scene is just is pretty close. It's just a couple
Speaker 3: of miles from more like Melissa's body was found. So
Speaker 3: he's coming over the scene. The scene is scattered with
Speaker 3: some of Claudine's sort of beloggings, some of her notebooks
Speaker 3: her like an idea, and so they're like combing through
Speaker 3: all of it and they find the actual showcasings. The
Speaker 3: shellcasings happen to be forty caliber Federal bullets. And so
Speaker 3: now they've they've made a connection that it's now two
Speaker 3: murders close close to like one another, I'm using the
Speaker 3: same caliber shootings. And somebody realizes, like even at the scene,
Speaker 3: that the second victim is is Claudine Weda, which was
Speaker 3: a person of interest that they were looking for to
Speaker 3: talk to about Melissa's murder because they because they were
Speaker 3: told that they were friends. So now you have two
Speaker 3: murder scenes close close to one another, using the same
Speaker 3: caliber bullets, both of them sex workers who actually knew
Speaker 3: each other. So at Don's on Carderon and E. J.
Speaker 3: Salinas that this is no longer just just random acts
Speaker 3: of violence, that they have a serial pillar on their hands.
Speaker 2: Now let's go to Trooper Hernat and what happens is
Speaker 2: that Erica Penna speaks to him, and he listens intently
Speaker 2: and then gives a call to Calderan so let's fast forward.
Speaker 2: They bring her in, they get information from her. What
Speaker 2: is the information they get from her? And what do
Speaker 2: they have her do in cooperation with law enforcement?
Speaker 3: So, Erica Panna had just escaped from David Ortiz's clutches
Speaker 3: after he drew a gun on her. So she basically escapes,
Speaker 3: runs to a gas station where a Texas trooper happens
Speaker 3: to be pumping gas. Trooper Hernandez. They so she Nandas
Speaker 3: takes her to a substation where she's interviewed by Gaddern
Speaker 3: and E. J. Sealinas. And so, through the course of
Speaker 3: this interview Edica Pania's information is a little spotty, Like
Speaker 3: she she basically knows that this this this this sort
Speaker 3: of repeat client of hers, David Ortiz, knows that he's
Speaker 3: a Border Patrol agent, but yet tells tells investigators that
Speaker 3: that like he may be an oil worker and doesn't
Speaker 3: really remember his full name only like David, but she
Speaker 3: does know one one very important piece of information and
Speaker 3: that's where he lives, and so and so like, investigators
Speaker 3: basically come up with a plan to put her to
Speaker 3: put her in a vehicle and have two other vehicles
Speaker 3: trail her and She's going to take him to the
Speaker 3: neighborhood and point out his house, which is like what
Speaker 3: they do. They basically drive through these different neighborhoods until
Speaker 3: they get close. Ericapaangnat points out exactly where David O'tiz's
Speaker 3: house is, and so using that using his his address,
Speaker 3: got their own, and like and like Selena's, are able
Speaker 3: to access databases and get the name of what is
Speaker 3: now their their prime suspect, Juan David Ortiz.
Speaker 2: At some point to David Ortiz in this crime spree,
Speaker 2: this murder spree, is aware that police are after him,
Speaker 2: and again his old paranoia revisits him. But at the
Speaker 2: same time that he's being paranoid about being caught, he's
Speaker 2: hatching a plan to maybe end it all through suicide
Speaker 2: or he has another plan and it involves again San
Speaker 2: Bernardo Avenue.
Speaker 3: After Erica Penna leaves this truck space on his clutches
Speaker 3: runs away, David Ortiz is like left in his truck
Speaker 3: looking at her basically run away, and like it basically
Speaker 3: dawns on him that that she is obviously going to
Speaker 3: go to the actual police now. She is going to
Speaker 3: tell him everything, and that they're going to after him.
Speaker 3: So he goes back to his house. He takes out
Speaker 3: every every weapon he has in the house, which which
Speaker 3: which included a nine millimeter handgun, his his forty caliber weapon.
Speaker 3: Starts to put all this this this sort of weaponry
Speaker 3: out on his kitchen island and sits back and basically waits,
Speaker 3: waits on police like knock on his door, and his
Speaker 3: his like overall thinking is that one state, one state,
Speaker 3: try to come in. He's he's just going to open
Speaker 3: fire and basically shoot it out with him and die
Speaker 3: by die by suicide. He basically knew that, you know,
Speaker 3: he's not going to have a chance to out out
Speaker 3: shoot all these people. He just he just he just
Speaker 3: wanted to go out and I'm in a blaze of
Speaker 3: gunfire basically. So he goes back to his house. He waits,
Speaker 3: he waits, he waits. Nobody shows up immediately, so he
Speaker 3: gets tired of waiting. He gets back in his car
Speaker 3: and says, screw it, Like, if they're not coming for me,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to go back to Sanbernando. And at
Speaker 3: this point, his thinking is not picking up women for
Speaker 3: sexual favors or anything like that. At this point, he's
Speaker 3: just thinking that he wants to quote unquote clean up
Speaker 3: the streets. This is what he what he actually tells
Speaker 3: investigators later, and he's going back to San Bernando with
Speaker 3: this with a singular thought of picking up sex workers,
Speaker 3: driving them out, and killing them.
Speaker 2: You introduce another character that's essential to this story, and
Speaker 2: the victim, Shelley Cant, and you talk about cleaning up
Speaker 2: the streets. This woman has a particular problem, which is
Speaker 2: a flesh eating disease, and the accompanying smell tell us
Speaker 2: about what happens when she encounters David Ortiz.
Speaker 3: So it just so happens that as he's driving around,
Speaker 3: he runs into Chilly can Too, which is another sex
Speaker 3: worker who works there on the avenue who also knew
Speaker 3: who also knew like Melissa, who was good, who was
Speaker 3: pretty good friends with Claudine Lutta. But she's out because
Speaker 3: she's like trying to make money also, and so David
Speaker 3: Ortiz pulls over and she gets in. She gets in
Speaker 3: his truck, and Chllie Canto, out of all the sex
Speaker 3: workers out there, had had one of the more debilitating
Speaker 3: things happening to her, where she shot her legs up
Speaker 3: so many times that it basically created scars up and
Speaker 3: down her leg basically began to rot the actual flesh there,
Speaker 3: So her legs were really infected and really in a
Speaker 3: really bad shape, to the point that it was like
Speaker 3: you could smell it very obviously had a very pungent,
Speaker 3: very strong smell. So when David Ortiz picks her up,
Speaker 3: the first thing he actually notices is like the is
Speaker 3: it's like the smell of Chilli's legs, legs. But he
Speaker 3: keeps driving her out and a driver out to a
Speaker 3: point under our bridge. And this is where this one
Speaker 3: was a little different, So he is still he's still
Speaker 3: intent on on cleaning up the actual streets. He still
Speaker 3: has this uh suit, these sort of suicidal thoughts. But
Speaker 3: he drives Chilli under one of the overpasses right off
Speaker 3: of thirty five, and according to what he told investigators
Speaker 3: later was that he basically told Chilli. He confesses to
Speaker 3: Chelli that he's the one killing these sex workers. He
Speaker 3: draws his gun but tells her, why don't you start
Speaker 3: walking like that way san Antonio. That way is back
Speaker 3: to Laredo, or just basically walk, And he tells investigators
Speaker 3: later that he he wanted to let her go so
Speaker 3: that he could tell people that he's the one doing it. Shelley, though,
Speaker 3: starts to walk away and turns back around and urges
Speaker 3: him not like not to do it, urges him not
Speaker 3: to commit suicide, tells him that God loves him and
Speaker 3: that somebody loves him for some reason. This strikes her
Speaker 3: tease like the wrong way and tells her again just
Speaker 3: walk away. Chilleye doesn't, and so David Ortiz ends up
Speaker 3: shooting her several times also and kills her there under
Speaker 3: the overpass.
Speaker 2: Let's choose this as an opportunity to stop to hear
Speaker 2: these messages. Now, another character that's friends of Chelly and
Speaker 2: Melissa Janelle, and she's a transgendered woman, and you right
Speaker 2: that she's stunned by the news of Melissa and then
Speaker 2: the news of Claudine. But she still is out on
Speaker 2: the street and she's just friends of telling her to
Speaker 2: be careful.
Speaker 3: Janelle ortis actually one of the more sort of interesting
Speaker 3: people in this story. She's a transgender woman transitioned around
Speaker 3: high school and transitioning down in high school don Laredo
Speaker 3: is not an easy task. She I talked to friends
Speaker 3: and family members of her who said it was very
Speaker 3: hard for her to basically to basically transition. She was
Speaker 3: a target of a lot of ridicule, a lot of
Speaker 3: sort of bullying over it, but she managed to transition
Speaker 3: and unfortunately got into drugs also. She had a pretty
Speaker 3: heavy heroin addiction. So when she so when she struggled
Speaker 3: to make money, she basically did what a lot of
Speaker 3: people there did, and that's to go to sam Bernado
Speaker 3: and work as a sex worker. Her family continually trying
Speaker 3: to get her off the streets. Her sister Rose was
Speaker 3: very close to her, and her father and brothers constantly
Speaker 3: trying to get her off the streets. But she was
Speaker 3: pretty entrenched there and some Beernando and a really well
Speaker 3: known figure there. People actually knew her well. She was
Speaker 3: very well liked. She was this sort of boisterous presence there.
Speaker 3: But on September fifteenth, after after David Ortiz kills kills
Speaker 3: Chelie Can too, he goes back to San Bernando. He
Speaker 3: had he had plans of like possibly just killing himself
Speaker 3: around that time, but instead drives alongside Bernando, picks up
Speaker 3: Janelle and drives her to a place right off of
Speaker 3: thirty five.
Speaker 2: And he proceeds to kill her as well.
Speaker 3: Pace thirty five asks, tells her to walk a little further,
Speaker 3: and then shoots her also and kills her.
Speaker 2: Did we go into what she actually says to him
Speaker 2: and confronts or teas about out.
Speaker 3: So about halfway there, she also realizes that he is
Speaker 3: the actual murderer. And it's this realization that just dawns
Speaker 3: on her and she basically dares her, I'm sorry. She
Speaker 3: basically dares him. She basically says, you know, if you're
Speaker 3: gonna do it, do it. Stop messing around, stop stalling.
Speaker 3: And so he pulls over and gets her out of
Speaker 3: the truck and then shoots her, kills her.
Speaker 2: You take us to the DPS Trooper John Henry Bradshaw.
Speaker 2: By now, they're looking for a white Dodge truck. They
Speaker 2: have the license plate number and the photo of his
Speaker 2: driver's license, so they're looking. They're hunting for David Ortiz
Speaker 2: thanks to Eric Apana's information. And so while he's looking
Speaker 2: for him, where is David Orties and where does he
Speaker 2: end up being surrounded by law enforcement? Tell us about
Speaker 2: what happens.
Speaker 3: So at this point there's apb out on David Ortiz
Speaker 3: and his white truck. They got his license plate, which
Speaker 3: means all Texas troopers, all state troopers like in that
Speaker 3: region know that they're basically looking out for this white truck,
Speaker 3: as as well as sheriff's sheriff's deputies and all these people.
Speaker 3: There's a trooper named John Henry Bradshaw. He is in
Speaker 3: the region and he's like cruising up and down. He's
Speaker 3: cruising along San Bernando Avenue when he spots David Ortiz
Speaker 3: pulling into a Stripes gas station and so he kind
Speaker 3: of curls around. He pulls into the parking lot, confirmed
Speaker 3: that that's his truck through the license plate. Shortly thereafter,
Speaker 3: a second trooper shows up. They basically confront David Ort's
Speaker 3: asked as he's as he's coming out of the Stripes.
Speaker 3: They basically tell him to stop right there, put his
Speaker 3: hands up. David Ortiz stalls. He said, I don't know
Speaker 3: what you're talking about. You're you're freaking me out, and
Speaker 3: a second later he just dashes off. He just he
Speaker 3: just runs away. He runs across the street, He runs
Speaker 3: away from the from the Stripes. He runs southbound right
Speaker 3: along the highway there, makes it right and then turns
Speaker 3: up the ramp into the parking lot of the AVA
Speaker 3: hotel that's actually located nearby. Meanwhile, both of these troopers
Speaker 3: were running after him, but but they lose sight of him,
Speaker 3: and so what ensues later is that they caught out
Speaker 3: the Webcounty Swat Team Luido Police. So there's a whole
Speaker 3: big police presence that basically block off is like two
Speaker 3: or three block radios, and they're gone a lot by
Speaker 3: lot looking for David Ortis.
Speaker 2: Yes, you're right, it's very exciting, and that they're they're
Speaker 2: very afraid that with his training, his markmanship, he won
Speaker 2: the awards in the military, and that they missed in
Speaker 2: searching his truck and missed the forty caliber gun with
Speaker 2: those jacketed hollow point bullets. So they were very very
Speaker 2: concerned about finding him and not having an encounter, deadly
Speaker 2: encounter with him. Needless to say, he was arrested and
Speaker 2: then brought in for questioning. And again Captain Calderan and
Speaker 2: Selinas are in the room, and you write that Captain
Speaker 2: Calderan has been very effective in his career in about
Speaker 2: one hundred times getting confessions, so he has a strateg
Speaker 2: and he wants to get a confession from this David Ortiz.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it basically comes down to this room inside the
Speaker 3: sub this substation, this Sheriff's office sub station, and in
Speaker 3: this room, it's only one David Ortiz sitting at the
Speaker 3: table and he's's actually handcuffed. Captain godd Own is there,
Speaker 3: and E. J. Selina is the EXAs ranger and they're
Speaker 3: going over all of these murders. And at that point,
Speaker 3: like like they only know about three murders, Melissa Laudine
Speaker 3: and Shelley kN too. They haven't found they haven't found
Speaker 3: Janelle's body yet, so they're they're basically asking him about
Speaker 3: these three murders, and like, at first, Ortiz basically claims
Speaker 3: not to know any of these women. It says that
Speaker 3: he that he has no idea what they're what they're
Speaker 3: talking about. But but slowly, over the course of several
Speaker 3: hours interviewing him, Godanon just like tries to keep them talking,
Speaker 3: keep them talking. And there's a very pivotal moment in
Speaker 3: this in this interview where like where like Ritiz is
Speaker 3: looking down and he asked to have his handcuffs removed,
Speaker 3: and there's a there's a real small moment in this
Speaker 3: in this interview, like right after he says that that
Speaker 3: cardon looks at Selena's Godon doesn't have his weapon on him,
Speaker 3: so he's basically risking that if he takes the handcuffs
Speaker 3: off Ortiz, that like Ortiz could lunge at him or
Speaker 3: try to get Selena's his weapon. So he gives he
Speaker 3: gives like Selena's a quick look and then takes out
Speaker 3: the keys and takes off his handcuffs. Ortiz kind of
Speaker 3: rubs his wrists and then proceeds to like say, yes,
Speaker 3: I actually knew, actually knew Melissa Amides, I knew Ladinata,
Speaker 3: and and he like starts to detail how he murdered
Speaker 3: them in very very vivid detail. He basically describes picking
Speaker 3: up and shooting Melissa, he describes picking up and shooting Claudine,
Speaker 3: and he also he also describes picking up and shooting Shelley.
Speaker 3: But what really surprising investigators that after he says all
Speaker 3: of this, he says, and by the way, there's a
Speaker 3: fourth victim which you don't know about, and tells them
Speaker 3: about Janelle. And that's when deputy is in a separate room.
Speaker 3: They all jump up out of their chairs and scramble
Speaker 3: scramble to their trucks and go out to basically recover
Speaker 3: Janelle's body.
Speaker 2: Very interesting. You write about the trial at the end
Speaker 2: of this book with that confession. It's not a slam dunk,
Speaker 2: but it really really helped in this particular case. You
Speaker 2: write about the trial itself and the defense doing a
Speaker 2: I've seen it before, but a controversial move in that
Speaker 2: they rest their case after providing no witnesses whatsoever. Tell
Speaker 2: us about the result.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a little surprising. I think everybody was
Speaker 3: actually expecting defense to bring in some witnesses, even if
Speaker 3: it's a character witness, but the defense basically rests shortly
Speaker 3: after the prosecution does. Prosecution mounted a very convincing case.
Speaker 3: They had a nine hour videotaped interview where where like
Speaker 3: Rotiz talks about all the murders and how he did
Speaker 3: it and then basically alerts them to the fourth one.
Speaker 3: They had forensic evidence with the with the shellcasings that
Speaker 3: every one of the scenes matching his his agency issued weapon.
Speaker 3: And so when the jury deliberates, they basically only only
Speaker 3: really deliberate for about five hours. They come back and
Speaker 3: he's found guilty of capital murder. Yeah.
Speaker 2: She read about the district Attorney Atlantis and how dedicated
Speaker 2: and determined he is to get a conviction for David Ortiz,
Speaker 2: and he's applauded for that, and you write that right
Speaker 2: after this, it seemed that this da, this prosecutor still
Speaker 2: had his hands full with another case very very similar,
Speaker 2: again perpetrated by another patrol Border Patrol agent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as soon as he finishes with this, with this case,
Speaker 3: district Attorney on Ease had to basically pivot because there
Speaker 3: was another border patory agent, Anthony boudegeuz Abules, who was
Speaker 3: in the same sector as David Ortiz, the dashual Arado sector,
Speaker 3: who a couple of months earlier was basically arresting, was
Speaker 3: basically arrested for murdering his girlfriend in there and their
Speaker 3: one year old son, Alanies had to they basically celebrated
Speaker 3: briefly the conviction of Juan David Ortiz and then had
Speaker 3: to head back to like Laredo and starting this new
Speaker 3: case of this other order peratory agent who was also
Speaker 3: arrested for murders.
Speaker 2: You read about in the trial, but also because you
Speaker 2: spoke to these people and of course you did a
Speaker 2: job of introducing these people and further humanizing them for us,
Speaker 2: and the reaction by family members at the trial, all
Speaker 2: the four victims, Melissa Chelli, Janelle and Claudia Our Claudine,
Speaker 2: pardon me. I want to thank you so much for
Speaker 2: this interview and coming on and talking about The Devil
Speaker 2: behind the Badge, The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border
Speaker 2: Patrol serial Killer. I want to thank you very much
Speaker 2: for people that might want to take a look. Do
Speaker 2: you have a website or do you any social media and.
Speaker 3: Do you have a website, Rick Jervis coms where they
Speaker 3: could get information there and all of my social media
Speaker 3: sites also have links in the book.
Speaker 2: It's been a fascinating interview and congratulations on this brilliant book,
Speaker 2: The Devil Behind the Badge, The Horrifying Twelve Days of
Speaker 2: the Border Patrol serial Killer. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: this interview, Rick Jervis, and you have a great evening
Speaker 2: and good night.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you,