A U.S. Border Patrol agent who confessed to shooting four women in the head and leaving their bodies on rural Texas roadsides has been indicted on a capital murder charge, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
A grand jury decided to upgrade the charge against Juan David Ortiz, Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz said at a news conference. Alaniz said prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
Ortiz, 35, was initially charged with 4 counts of murder, as well as aggravated assault and unlawful restraint. He has been held in Webb County jail on a $2.5 million bond since his Sept. 15 arrest in the border town of Laredo.
The Border Patrol intel supervisor and Navy veteran seemed to be living a typical suburban life with his wife and 2 children when the killings occurred. After the 1st slaying, he continued going to work as usual. He was eventually arrested after he pulled a gun on a woman who was able to escape and asked a state trooper for help.
Authorities have said the victims were sex workers whom Ortiz knew and targeted for their vulnerability. Melissa Ramirez, 29, was slain on Sept. 3, and 42-year-old Claudine Luera was killed on Sept. 13.
On Sept. 14, he picked up another woman, Erika Pena, who told investigators that Ortiz acted oddly when she brought up Ramirez’s slaying and later pointed a gun at her in a gas station, according to court documents. Pena said Ortiz grabbed her shirt as she tried to get out of his truck, but she pulled it off and ran, finding a state trooper who was refueling his vehicle.
Ortiz fled and, he later told investigators, he then picked up and killed his last 2 victims — 35-year-old Guiselda Alicia Cantu and 28-year-old Janelle Ortiz, a transgender woman whose birth name was Humberto Ortiz.
With Pena’s help, authorities were able to track Ortiz to a hotel parking garage where he was arrested.
According to court documents, Ortiz confessed to investigators that he had killed 4 people.
Source: Associated Press, December 7, 2018
Border Patrol agent accused of killings could face execution, but victims' families rebuke death penalty
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Juan David Ortiz, a U.S. Border Patrol agent charged with killing 4 women around Laredo this year.
Ask Patricia Ortiz, an aunt to Nikki Enriquez, 1 of the victims, and she'd be OK if he just spent the rest of his life in prison.
“I’m a good believer in God, and I know God will take care of this situation,” she said. “I can’t say I want to see him die."
Wednesday's announcement that prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Ortiz, 35, split families and friends over whether the alleged killer should die or spend a lifetime in prison.
Texas by far leads the nation in putting convicted criminals to death, with 511 executions, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based research group that has criticized the way capital punishment is administered in America. Virginia is in far-off second, with 113, followed by Oklahoma with 112.
[DPN: Texas has executed 557 individuals, not 511, since the state resumed capital punishment on December 7, 1982]
The Texas borderlands – largely Hispanic, Catholic and generally anti-death-penalty – see things differently.
Cristina Benavides, mother of Melissa Ramirez, another victim, said she suffers from crying bouts when she thinks of her daughter’s slaying and has barely slept in the 3 months since her death. She said she wants to see Ortiz suffer the same way her family has but doesn’t think the death penalty is the right choice.
“Let God apply justice,” she said. “God is knowing. He’s watching him."
Authorities allege that Ortiz, a 10-year veteran of the Border Patrol, picked up 4 women – Ramirez, 29; Claudine Luera, 42; Guiselda Alicia Cantu, 35; and Enriquez, 28 – on different occasions from Sept. 3 to 14, drove them to remote locations and killed each with gunshots to the head. All the women were sex workers who congregated around San Bernardo Avenue in Laredo, known for its sex and drug trade.
Ortiz, 35, was arrested after a fifth woman fled from his truck and alerted police. He was charged with 4 counts of murder and has been held at the Webb County Jail on $2.5 million bond. Officials described him as a "serial" killer. Cristina Benavides, mother of Laredo murder victim Melissa Ramirez, is still trying to raise enough money to inter her daughter's remains in a nearby Catholic cemetery. "I cry a lot," she says.
Isidro Alaniz, district attorney for Webb and Zapata Counties, said at a news conference Wednesday that Ortiz, who was indicted on one count of capital murder, showed a consistent "scheme" in the killings. All the women except Ramirez knew they were going to die soon after entering his truck, he said.
It's only the 2nd time in 25 years that Webb County prosecutors will seek the death penalty, Alaniz said.
"Ortiz preyed on the weak, the sick, the vulnerable," he said. "San Bernardo was his hunting ground. What does that make him? That makes him a predator."
Texas law mandates a trial in death penalty cases. An arraignment is expected in the next 30 days, Alaniz said.
In a tearful statement after the indictment was read, Colette Mireles, Luera's sister, said she was "leaning on faith" to get through this difficult time and the emotional days before a protracted trial.
"God has the last word, and God is what gives us the strength to move forward," she said.
She said, "In my heart, I just want what's right. We're no one to wish death on anybody. But we know God has the last word. Whatever the outcome, justice will prevail."
Karina Ramos and Kristian Montemayor, Luera's nieces, said they were split on their desire of punishment for Ortiz, if he's convicted: Ramos wants him to spend the rest of his life in prison; Montemayor would prefer to see him executed.
Ramos, 29, said Ortiz was suicidal as police caught up to him and probably wants to die. A long prison sentence thinking of his alleged acts is worse punishment, she said.
Montemayor, 24, said he deserves to die for the pain he brought to her family and other families. "He'll be in jail, comfortable, eating three times a day," she said. "He doesn't deserve to be alive."
Source: USA Today, Rick Jervis, December 7, 2018
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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
