Texas: Border Patrol agent charged with capital murder, prosecutors will seek death penalty

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

⚑ | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com.

Opposed to Capital Punishment? Help us keep this blog up and running! DONATE!

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde

Two Executions In Six Hours: Florida Set For Historical Double Execution Tuesday

Florida is preparing to execute two death row inmates on Tuesday, July 28, in an action that would mark the state’s first double execution in more than 60 years. Former police officer James Duckett, 68, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12 p.m., followed six hours later by 80-year-old Dominick Occhicone at 6 p.m. If carried out, these will mark the 39th and 40th executions under Gov. Ron DeSantis and the 11th and 12th in the state since the beginning of 2026. In response, Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (FADP) has launched petition and letter-writing efforts asking DeSantis to halt both procedures. The group has organized two public vigils outside Florida State Prison in Raiford, set for 11 a.m. and 5 p.m., contingent on whether stays are issued.

Florida executes Dominick Occhicone

Florida executes 2 men in a day. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has made Florida's death chamber the nation’s busiest at the end of his final term. STARKE, Fla. — Florida on Tuesday became the first state in nearly a decade to carry out two executions in a single day, the last an 80-year-old man who was the second-oldest inmate known to receive a lethal injection in modern U.S. history. Hours earlier, the state executed a former police officer convicted of killing a young girl.

Florida | 49 years on death row, killer of Bonita Springs teen learns death date

A Fort Myers man on death row for nearly five decades learned his execution date as Gov. Ron DeSantis signed his order Thursday, July 30. Harold Gene Lucas, then 24, shot and killed his 16-year-old girlfriend, Anthia Jill Piper in Bonita Springs on August 14, 1976. Lucas was 24 when he was charged in Piper's shooting death at her parents' home on Aug. 14, 1976. The execution is set for Sept. 1 in a state that has accelerated its pace under DeSantis the past two years, with a record of 19 executions in 2025. Piper was shot seven times by Lucas, who claimed to be intoxicated.

Florida executes James Duckett

Double execution: 1st of 2 inmates is put to death in Florida Florida has executed James Duckett, a 68-year-old former cop convicted of killing an 11-year-old girl in 1987. The state is set to execute an 80-year-old man 6 hours later for a 1986 murder. Florida carried out the 1st double execution in more than 60 years, executing former police officer James Duckett and later scheduling the execution of 80‑year‑old Dominick Occhicone, amid Governor Ron DeSantis’s aggressive push to increase death penalties in the state. Florida has put to death the 1st of 2 inmates in the state's 1st double execution in more than 60 years amid an aggressive death penalty push by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Florida | Former warden recalls botched electrocution that left him battling PTSD for 13 years and turned him into an abolitionist

Ron McAndrew anticipated it would be just another standard execution. He had been assigned to carry out the death of Cuban refugee Pedro Medina via electric chair within the confines of Florida State Prison. Fifteen years had passed since Medina's conviction for the murder of 52-year-old Dorothy James, and McAndrew's responsibility was to oversee the administration of lethal electrical currents to his brain. Having already supervised two previous executions using the identical procedure and raised in a community that strongly supported capital punishment, he expected a swift conclusion with justice delivered.

Iran erects iron gallows in Isfahan protest square

An iron gallows has been erected in an Isfahan square where protests erupted in January. Families of several of the 10 remaining prisoners sentenced to death have been summoned for farewell visits. An iron gallows erected in Ali-Khani Square in the central Iranian city of Isfahan has raised fears that the regime is preparing to publicly execute protesters arrested during nationwide demonstrations in January. Sources who spoke with Iran International said large numbers of security forces had been deployed in the area, while the families of several prisoners sentenced to death had been summoned to the prison for farewell visits.

North Korea | 'I was only 9': North Korean defector recalls childhood memory of public execution

Kim Eun-joo was 9 years old when her teacher stopped their lesson and told the class to follow her outside. The children were marched to a public execution ground in North Korea. “I would cry even when our family dog died,” Kim said in a recent interview with The Korea Times. “But the first time I watched humans killing a human, I had no words for what I was feeling. It was the most brutal scene I have ever seen, in any movie or in real life.” The memory has stayed with her ever since. Now a human rights advocate after defecting from North Korea, Kim recently brought that childhood scene to the 9th World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Paris, where North Korea’s use of public executions and capital punishment was officially placed on the agenda for the first time.

USA | What happens in the final weeks before an execution? These reporters were inside the room.

The journalists behind ‘The Last 12 Weeks’ earned extraordinary access to a death penalty defense team—and faced difficult ethical choices Many defense lawyers are naturally cagey. They work in a pressure cooker, protecting their clients’ rights while fighting for the best possible outcome. And arguably, the stakes can’t get any higher than trying to save a client’s life. So no, defense lawyers don’t usually invite journalists into strategy meetings. But that’s what happened when Marshall Project reporter Maurice Chammah and Serial Productions senior producer Alvin Melathe spent the final few months before a Texas execution embedded with a capital defense team.

19 July 1943 | Auschwitz's Largest Public Hanging: 12 Polish Prisoners Executed in Escape Reprisal

OSWIECIM, Poland — The SS carried out the largest public hanging in Auschwitz history on July 19, 1943, executing 12 Polish prisoners before other inmates as collective punishment for escapes and civilian contacts. The victims, all from the camp’s surveyors’ labor unit, were hanged on gallows built in front of the camp kitchen during an Auschwitz I roll call. The SS orchestrated this reprisal following prisoner escapes from the surveyors’ detail and unauthorized communication between inmates and civilians. Camp authorities used the recent escapes as a pretext to impose collective punishment.

Idaho | How Bryan Kohberger’s Guilty Plea Move Could Be His Death Sentence

If Bryan Kohberger successfully withdraws his guilty plea and goes to trial for the murders of four University of Idaho students, it could lead to him being sentenced to death, experts told Newsweek . Kohberger, 31, filed a handwritten petition on Monday from the Idaho Maximum Security Penitentiary, where he is serving four consecutive life sentences for the murders of Kaylee Goncalves, Ethan Chapin, Xana Kernodle and Madison Mogen in a rental home near the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, in 2022. Kohberger pleaded guilty to the fatal stabbings just over a year ago, a month before jury selection was set to start.

Death Penalty News

Search This Blog