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0:34

So I remember driving in my car

0:36

at night in Austin, and I was

0:38

listening to NPR, and

0:40

the news bulletin came

0:43

on. And I remember the anchor

0:45

saying a man had been

0:47

arrested from the Border

0:49

Patrol for killing

0:52

four women in Laredo.

0:55

And I remember just thinking to myself, huh,

0:59

I know a guy who works at Border Patrol. And

1:02

that was it. I didn't think anything of it, right? And then

1:04

the next day, I heard the news

1:06

bulletin again. But this

1:08

time, they said that he used

1:10

to be in the Navy. And my, I mean, my,

1:13

the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and

1:15

I was like, no way, no

1:17

way. And I raced home,

1:20

and I got on the internet, and I did all these Google

1:22

searches, and I saw a photo of him. And I

1:24

was like, oh, my God, that's

1:27

the guy I used to work with.

1:29

I was just so shocked, because my

1:32

memory of him was this guy

1:34

who was good at his job,

1:37

everyone liked, was squared away. He was like

1:39

someone you would trust, you

1:41

know, a person with authority

1:44

that you would trust.

1:47

It just made me think, man, wow, you just, you

1:49

never know a person.

1:52

You can never know a person.

1:57

that

2:00

medic who met Juan David Ortiz in 2008. The

2:04

two of them worked together at a training facility

2:06

in San Antonio that prepared other medics

2:08

for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Like

2:11

many who knew Ortiz, Caro had a hard time

2:13

believing that he was capable of committing such appalling

2:16

acts of violence. In the days

2:18

and months after his arrest, Caro and

2:20

many others would attempt to reconcile the kind

2:22

and generous man Ortiz appeared to be

2:24

with the monster that he'd become. As

2:27

they would discover, there were no

2:29

easy answers.

2:38

This is Gone South. I'm

2:40

Jed Lipinski, episode

2:42

six, Squared Away. For

2:57

the patrol agent Juan David Ortiz remains behind bars tonight

3:02

accused of murdering four women in Laredo in

3:05

the last two weeks. Authorities are calling him a rogue

3:07

Asian

3:08

and a serial killer. They say he preyed

3:11

on some of the most vulnerable members of

3:13

the community. The

3:16

report says he was arrested for the murder of a woman

3:18

in Laredo in the last two weeks. The

3:21

police are calling him a rogue Asian and

3:23

a serial killer.

3:27

Laredo residents were relieved by the arrest

3:29

of Juan David Ortiz. They could sleep

3:31

easier knowing that a serial killer was off the street,

3:34

but they were also deeply disturbed to learn that

3:37

a border patrol agent was behind the murders, especially

3:40

because Ortiz wasn't the first Laredo border

3:42

agent accused of murder that year. Just

3:45

four months earlier, Agent Ronald Borgos-Avilas

3:48

was charged with stabbing his mistress and their

3:50

one-year-old son to death in a park in Northwest

3:53

Laredo. Laredo Mayor

3:55

Pete Sands pointed the finger at U.S. Customs

3:58

and Border Protection leadership. asking

4:00

why they had been unable to detect such dangerous

4:02

individuals within their ranks. The

4:05

Monday after Ortiz's arrest, Border

4:07

Patrol Chief Carla Provost traveled

4:09

from Washington, D.C. to Laredo for

4:12

a joint press conference with District Attorney

4:14

Alanese. She defended the integrity

4:16

of her agency.

4:18

First and foremost, I do want to reiterate,

4:20

in South Texas I've got a workforce of approximately

4:23

6,000 and I do not want a

4:25

couple of rogue individuals being characterized

4:28

of how my men and women work and who

4:30

they are because they are consummate professionals.

4:33

They work diligently day in and day

4:35

out.

4:36

An official in the Border Patrol's Office of Special

4:38

Responsibility later added, quote,

4:40

there was nothing in his background, certainly, that

4:42

would have alerted CBP or have indicated

4:45

Mr. Ortiz was capable of anything

4:47

like this. Only

4:49

one complaint, which was later dismissed, had

4:51

ever been filed against Ortiz after

4:53

an immigrant he apprehended said that he had taken

4:56

a cigarette from him. Two

4:58

months before the murders, Ortiz had even passed

5:00

his mandatory five-year background review,

5:03

which included a psychological and emotional

5:05

health evaluation. Provost

5:07

and others made clear that Ortiz had committed

5:09

his crimes as a civilian, not in

5:11

his capacity as a Border Patrol agent. As

5:14

such, he was not the federal government's problem.

5:17

They would let Texas' criminal justice system

5:19

determine his fate. When

5:22

I first talked to David Ortiz, or

5:24

David, just like I would do in any other case,

5:26

I first start talking to

5:29

him about background. This

5:31

is Joey Taiz, the Laredo defense

5:33

attorney who you may remember from episode one.

5:35

He was among the first to suspect

5:37

Melissa Ramirez's killer was law enforcement.

5:40

Coincidentally, he was assigned to represent

5:42

Ortiz. You meet a young man

5:45

who is 30 some odd years

5:47

old,

5:48

never been arrested for any violent

5:50

offense, never had any

5:54

domestic violence insinuation

5:57

from spouse or history.

5:59

and they're accused of four murders, you would think

6:02

that there would be something in his past

6:05

that would draw you to that. But

6:08

as far as he could tell, there wasn't. Taos

6:11

had listened to the interrogation, and for him,

6:13

the only red flag was that six months

6:15

before Ortiz admitted to killing four women,

6:18

the VA had diagnosed him with PTSD

6:20

and prescribed him a cocktail of psychiatric

6:22

drugs. During his

6:24

early days at the DA's office, Taos

6:27

had worked closely with a number of veterans who'd

6:29

bemoaned the treatment they'd received from Laredo's

6:31

VA hospital. Taos

6:33

suspected the VA may have irresponsibly

6:36

prescribed medications to Ortiz and

6:38

failed to properly monitor him. The

6:41

VA declined to comment for privacy reasons.

6:44

I have learned like it's not unusual

6:46

to find out that the VA doesn't do

6:49

as thorough of a job all the time as

6:51

they could or should. Unfortunately,

6:54

we as a country have done a very

6:56

poor job of helping

6:59

the young men and women that we sent across

7:02

in wars in dealing with their

7:04

post-traumatic stress and dealing with

7:06

the ugly stuff that they witnessed over there. And

7:09

so I thought that might be an issue.

7:14

Taos then spoke to members of Ortiz's family.

7:17

His mother, a clerk in San Antonio, described

7:19

him as nonviolent, caring, and well-respected,

7:22

the golden child of the family. His

7:25

wife, Daniella, described Ortiz

7:28

as a loving husband and a good father to their

7:30

two kids. She had no idea

7:32

that he'd been sleeping with sex workers, she said, and

7:34

was completely shocked by the murders. Since

7:37

he began treatment for PTSD, Daniella

7:39

had noticed no change in his personality. As

7:43

Taos looked deeper into the case, he identified

7:45

other issues that might help Ortiz's defense.

7:48

First, there was Erika Peña, the woman who'd

7:50

escaped Ortiz the night of his arrest. Taos

7:53

learned that she'd admitted to being on heroin that

7:55

night, which, in Taos's mind, may

7:58

have rendered her an unreliable witness.

8:01

Tayas also believed authorities may have failed

8:03

to get a warrant before arresting Ortiz

8:05

and searching his truck, where they found his gun.

8:08

And perhaps most important, Tayas questioned

8:10

whether Ortiz's confession had been coerced.

8:14

So law enforcement officers, usually

8:16

what they try to do is always make it seem like

8:19

the person in custody is speaking voluntarily,

8:22

which if you pull out 20 AR-15s

8:24

and point him at my face,

8:26

anything I do after that is not really voluntary.

8:30

If the defense managed to get Ortiz's confession

8:33

and his weapon thrown out before trial,

8:35

Tayas thought Ortiz could not only avoid

8:37

the death penalty, he could even win

8:39

a not guilty verdict. But

8:42

while Tayas prepared his defense of Ortiz, a

8:44

new set of investigators for the Webb County DA's

8:47

office launched their own probe into Ortiz's

8:49

background. Of primary interest

8:51

were his Border Patrol colleagues. We

8:54

reached out to more than a dozen current and former

8:57

Border Patrol agents who had worked with Ortiz,

8:59

and none of them agreed to speak on the record. But

9:02

we were able to obtain transcripts of their interviews

9:04

with DA investigators. What

9:06

follows is based on those transcripts. On

9:10

the subject of Ortiz's personality, his

9:12

colleagues were divided. Some

9:14

described him as smart, courteous, and professional.

9:17

Others said he was awkward, strange, and standoffish.

9:20

At work, he often whistled bird sounds and

9:23

sang military songs to himself. He

9:25

rarely spoke about his family, never socialized

9:28

with agents outside work, and spent hours

9:30

a day on Facebook, where he closely followed

9:33

La Gordy Loca's livestream. It

9:35

was known that he took medication for anxiety,

9:38

and several colleagues remarked on his obsessive

9:40

tendencies. When Ortiz fixed

9:42

his mind on something, one colleague said, he

9:45

had to accomplish it. Like

9:48

his wife, most of Ortiz's colleagues at the

9:50

Border Intel Center had noticed no change in his

9:52

personality prior to his arrest.

9:54

His supervisor said he never observed anything

9:56

in Ortiz's behavior that might qualify as

9:59

a red flag. And

10:01

yet, a few agents did notice a change.

10:04

In August 2018, a month before the

10:06

murders, one of Ortiz's subordinates said

10:08

Ortiz admitted he was quote, wrestling with

10:10

some demons and struggling with alcohol

10:13

abuse. A week before his arrest,

10:15

Ortiz told him that he'd quote, fallen off the

10:18

wagon, hard, and he doubted

10:20

he could get back on. Investigators

10:23

were itching to know how familiar Ortiz was with

10:25

the investigation into his own crimes and

10:27

whether he'd interfered with their efforts to solve the

10:29

case. In the interrogation,

10:32

Ortiz said all he'd done was run the license

10:34

plate of the Laredo cop suspected of killing

10:36

Melissa Ramirez. His border

10:39

intel colleagues confirmed that Ortiz had played

10:41

almost no role in the investigation, but

10:44

he had eagerly taken part in the gossip and speculation

10:46

about the case. He told one

10:48

agent that the killer must have been familiar with the

10:51

area around Jefferies Road where Melissa was

10:53

killed. He pestered intel analysts

10:55

for updates about the first suspect and

10:57

became irate when he was released, shouting,

11:00

that's bullshit. Everyone

11:02

was shocked by Ortiz's arrest. As

11:05

one agent put it, I did not believe Ortiz

11:07

was capable of anything like that. But

11:10

weeks after the fact, comments Ortiz

11:12

made now seem freighted with meaning. A

11:15

few days after Melissa's murder and before Claudine's

11:17

body was found, several agents were talking

11:20

about the case with Ortiz when one of them suggested

11:22

a serial killer might be involved. According

11:25

to one of the agents present, Ortiz

11:27

smiled and said, that's what I

11:29

was telling this guy. What

11:31

if it's a serial killer?

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13:04

Hey it's Anna Garcia, host

13:06

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13:11

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app or wherever you get your podcasts.

13:41

Brandon Caro, the Navy medic from the top

13:43

of the episode who'd worked with Ortiz 10 years

13:45

earlier, shared the disbelief that Ortiz's

13:48

family and colleagues felt. And he

13:50

too was troubled by the memory of something Ortiz

13:52

said.

13:54

We

14:00

were talking

14:01

and he told me that he was in the invasion and

14:04

I was like

14:05

So you were like 19

14:08

during operation Iraqi

14:10

freedom and he kind of looked at me

14:12

And he gave me this look and he was like, yeah He nodded

14:14

his head and the look was kind of like

14:17

it was like I was so young

14:19

You

14:19

know and I saw such horrible things

14:22

and we never got into specifics, but like I

14:24

could tell

14:25

that it made a huge impact on These

14:28

are these moments that like I didn't

14:30

really think had any significance at the time,

14:32

you know And then thinking back

14:34

about them now, it's like it has

14:37

a different kind of meaning now

14:39

given what's happened

14:41

Not long after his conversation with Caro

14:44

in 2009 Ortiz was honorably discharged from

14:46

the Navy and joined the Border Patrol Where

14:49

he would spend the next nine years of his career

14:51

in his confession Ortiz

14:53

had talked at length about the harrowing months

14:55

he spent in Iraq But he'd said almost

14:58

nothing about the years he spent with Border Patrol years

15:01

that saw record levels of migrant deaths and

15:03

apprehensions and Border Patrol agents

15:05

branded as monsters for separating kids

15:07

from their parents at the border Why

15:10

had Ortiz joined the Border Patrol? What

15:12

had he seen as an agent and how had

15:15

the experience impacted the smart sensitive

15:17

professional his family and colleagues described?

15:20

Ortiz was silent on the subject all

15:23

we know comes second hand a Friend

15:25

of Ortiz is named Eric Aguilar who'd

15:27

met him at a Marine Corps base in California? Claimed

15:30

Ortiz had altruistic motives for joining

15:32

CBP as he told Texas

15:35

Monthly magazine in 2019 Ortiz

15:37

quote didn't just want to stop the bad

15:39

guys He wanted to use his medical skills

15:42

to help migrants who had been traveling for days in

15:44

the desert just to get to the United States

15:47

Aguilar who knew Ortiz as doc

15:49

added I know this might be hard to understand

15:52

right now, but doc really cared

15:54

about people Over

15:57

the next few years Ortiz rose rapidly

15:59

through the border patrol

15:59

controls ranks.

16:01

Starting in the Catula border station, a tiny

16:03

outpost between San Antonio and Laredo,

16:05

his duties ranged from apprehending drug

16:08

mules and undocumented immigrants to intercepting

16:10

vehicles suspected of drug trafficking and

16:12

human smuggling. After moving

16:15

to Laredo, he conducted undercover surveillance

16:17

and raided migrant stash houses before

16:19

his promotion to intelligence supervisor. Professionally,

16:24

Ortiz was excelling, but Aguilar

16:26

said he struggled with the demands of the job.

16:28

As he told Texas Monthly, Ortiz allegedly

16:31

texted him photos of bones and skulls

16:33

he found in the desert. According

16:35

to Aguilar, he said he felt like he was back

16:37

in Iraq, going to war every day. He

16:40

suspected Ortiz was experiencing quote,

16:43

long repressed PTSD from his

16:45

time in Iraq. Aguilar

16:47

did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this

16:49

podcast, and it's unclear if Ortiz's

16:52

time in border patrol exacerbated his

16:54

existing PTSD symptoms or

16:56

created new ones. What's known

16:58

is that in February 2018, eight

17:01

years after he joined border patrol, Ortiz's

17:03

anxiety, nightmares and drinking were

17:05

bad enough that he sought treatment at the local VA,

17:08

and that doctors there felt confident he had PTSD.

17:12

What's also clear is that Ortiz was not the

17:14

only border patrol agent struggling with mental

17:16

health issues during this time. It

17:19

turns out that for the past decade, the

17:21

US border patrol has had the highest suicide

17:23

rate of any law enforcement agency in

17:25

the country. A suicideologist

17:28

the agency hired has identified some contributing

17:30

factors like the stress of the migrant

17:32

crisis and negative portrayals in the media.

17:35

But a spokesman for the border patrol union said

17:38

a major reason is that agents fear reporting

17:40

mental health concerns. Those

17:42

who do are forced to turn in their badges and service

17:45

weapons. They're confined to desk duty

17:47

and ineligible for overtime. The

17:49

spokesman called the ensuing fit for duty process

17:52

a quote guillotine to your career. Ortiz

17:56

seems to have felt the same pressure to hide his

17:58

mental state from his employer. During

18:00

his interrogation, he said he told a VA

18:03

psychiatrist that he was feeling suicidal.

18:06

According to Ortiz, the psychiatrist warned

18:08

him to keep such feelings to himself. Otherwise

18:11

she'd be forced to tell Border Patrol. As

18:13

Ortiz put it, they would reprimand my ass

18:16

quickly. So Ortiz

18:18

claimed he never mentioned suicide to his psychiatrist

18:21

again, and his supervisors of the

18:23

Border Intel Center remained in the dark. An

18:26

attorney who defends Border agents in civil cases

18:28

told me Ortiz's predicament was not uncommon.

18:32

He added, I've seen another dozen or so Ortiz's

18:34

around the country who are just ticking time

18:37

bombs.

18:40

It only took 20 minutes for

18:43

the grand jury to decide there was enough probable

18:45

cause to indict Juan David Ortiz. The

18:47

VA confirms they will be pursuing

18:50

the death penalty.

18:52

In December 2018, three months

18:54

after the murders, a grand jury indicted

18:57

Ortiz for capital murder. District

18:59

Attorney Alan Ease said he decided to pursue the

19:01

death penalty because the killings had been carried

19:04

out as part of a scheme.

19:06

It had a lot of characteristics of a hate

19:08

crime of targeting a certain segment

19:10

of the population and we

19:13

felt that the elements were there for

19:15

the capital murder, for death penalty.

19:18

Because of the capital murder charge, Ortiz

19:20

received a new defense team certified to try

19:23

death penalty cases. The trial

19:25

was scheduled for the following year in San Antonio,

19:27

but due to the pandemic, it was delayed until December 2022.

19:32

But just months before the trial began, the

19:34

prosecution changed course. The

19:36

victims' families, convinced that lethal injection

19:39

was an easy way out, had persuaded the

19:41

DA to pursue life in prison over

19:43

the death penalty. Alan Ease backed

19:45

off the capital murder and hate crime charges

19:47

and charged Ortiz with four counts of murder

19:50

and one count of aggravated assault. District

19:53

Attorney Alan Ease expected Ortiz's

19:55

defense team to argue that PTSD and

19:57

the medications prescribed by the VA had

19:59

played a role in his crimes. Ortiz

20:02

had said as much in his confession. We

20:05

had our experts ready to refute

20:07

whatever they were going to bring forward, but we

20:09

never got to that point because when the

20:11

case was handed over to them,

20:13

they decided not to present their expert testimony.

20:15

In fact, all the medications he mentioned

20:18

during the confession state didn't bring anyone.

20:21

Alanis thinks this was partly because Ortiz

20:23

seemed to be acting just fine at work and at

20:25

home during the period that he committed the murders.

20:28

We made an in-depth analysis

20:31

as to his performance at work, his

20:34

duties at work, his interactions at work.

20:37

All the while he was under medication

20:40

and he performed at a high level. He

20:43

was attending his kids' functions

20:45

at school. For all intents

20:47

and purposes, the medication was helping

20:50

him.

20:51

Had the defense tried to argue that Ortiz was

20:53

suffering from some kind of PTSD or

20:55

medication-induced psychosis, Alanis

20:58

said he would have pointed to Ortiz's wife and

21:00

supervisor, who'd noticed no change

21:02

in his personality before or after the

21:04

murders. Instead, the defense

21:07

argued that Ortiz's confession had been coerced.

21:10

They also tried to discredit the key witness,

21:12

Erika Peña, who'd admitted to using heroin

21:14

the night of the attack. The prosecution

21:17

responded by playing the entire nine-hour

21:19

interrogation video for the jury to

21:21

prove that Ortiz, who had conducted interrogations

21:24

himself, knew exactly what he was doing

21:26

and had confessed voluntarily. Erika

21:29

Peña, who was in recovery by then, bravely

21:31

held up under cross-examination and provided

21:34

damning testimony. And there

21:36

seemed to be no escaping the hard evidence. At

21:39

one point, Alanis called a firearms examiner

21:41

who concluded that the spent cartridges at the crime

21:44

scenes and the bullets taken from the victims had

21:46

all been fired from Ortiz's gun. Alanis

21:52

had all the evidence a prosecutor could want,

21:54

a detailed confession, an alleged murder

21:57

weapon and what prosecutors believed were

21:59

matching ballistics.

21:59

What

22:00

he didn't have was a motive.

22:02

Why did Ortiz commit these crimes?

22:05

First thing a lot of dreas want to know is motive. Why

22:07

does somebody do what they do?

22:09

One obstacle to proving motive was that Ortiz

22:11

was a trained intelligence officer.

22:14

There were no witnesses to his crimes. And

22:16

prosecutors claimed he'd been very cautious

22:18

about his phone.

22:20

We did not have any readable

22:23

communications that he had with any of the

22:25

victims. I'm talking about text messages.

22:28

I'm talking about a digital trail. He

22:31

was very careful about how he was

22:33

making contact with these people. He'd physically

22:35

go over there. And I could never present him

22:37

in a text message that said, hey, baby, what's up? Or

22:40

am I going to see you tonight? We didn't have any

22:42

of that.

22:43

What prosecutors did have were GPS

22:45

coordinates from Ortiz's phone at the time

22:48

of the murders.

22:49

That tells a story in and of itself, and it matches

22:51

up with the dates, the times, the locations that

22:53

he was at.

22:54

Ortiz, in his confession, had told

22:57

investigators why he killed Melissa Ramirez.

23:00

In short, he said he did it because she'd fallen

23:02

asleep in his truck and then called him an asshole

23:04

when she realized he'd driven them to the middle of nowhere.

23:08

But Alanis doubted Ortiz's story. He

23:10

suspected there was more to it. He

23:13

told the jury that Ortiz had begun seeing Melissa

23:15

in early 2018 and that the

23:17

two formed a close bond. But

23:20

by that summer, Ortiz appeared to have

23:22

dropped Melissa and started seeing her friend

23:24

Erica instead. Alanis

23:27

wondered, did that irritate Melissa? Did

23:29

Ortiz worry she might cause problems for

23:32

him?

23:33

I don't know how this is affecting his personal

23:35

life, the fact that he had already been

23:37

taking Melissa to his home

23:40

to have sex, whether she was going

23:42

to go and

23:43

knock on the door and introduce herself to his wife.

23:46

Those are just theories. Those are ideas. These

23:49

are human beings with feelings,

23:51

with emotions. And he

23:53

got in over his head.

23:59

on.

24:01

After he killed Melissa Ortiz may have

24:03

thought no one would care about the death of a drug-addicted

24:05

sex worker but from his perch

24:07

inside the border intel center he soon

24:09

realized investigators were taking her murder

24:12

very seriously.

24:13

He's cooking for 10 days and

24:16

this investigation is picking

24:19

up speed. They're bringing people in. Phone

24:22

calls are being made. You know Texas

24:24

Rangers involved, sheriff's office.

24:26

They're questioning people. They're all over

24:28

town. He's in a pressure cooker.

24:31

You know so he's already a ticking time bomb

24:35

and then that call comes into the border

24:37

intelligence center.

24:39

The call he's referring to is the one that investigators

24:41

placed the day before Claudine's body was

24:43

found. The one seeking information

24:45

on Claudine after people on San Bernardo

24:48

said she might have insight into who killed Melissa

24:50

Ramirez. Alaniz believed

24:52

that Ortiz knew the cops were looking for

24:54

Claudine.

24:56

In the same building Ortiz

24:58

is there. He overhears that

25:00

call maybe asks his buddy who are they looking for?

25:03

Oh Claudine Luella. Who

25:05

knows but he hears

25:07

that name Claudine's dead the next day. Coincidence?

25:11

I don't think so. The

25:13

next person Ortiz picked up was Erika

25:15

Pena. Alaniz didn't think that

25:17

was a coincidence either. In

25:19

his confession Ortiz admitted that

25:22

Erika had seen him and Melissa outside a drug

25:24

house the night Melissa was killed. In

25:26

Alaniz's mind Ortiz must have been afraid

25:29

that Erika would ID him as the last person

25:31

Melissa was with. Erika was

25:33

the closest thing to an eyewitness which

25:35

gave Ortiz good reason to silence her.

25:38

But there was another simpler reason that Alaniz

25:40

thought Ortiz had targeted Erika. Investigators

25:43

had discovered that before Ortiz found her on

25:45

the street he'd been searching for her online.

25:49

He was making Google searches through the jail

25:51

records for Erika. She wasn't in

25:53

custody but he's able to find her the next

25:55

day. Alaniz

25:57

suspected Ortiz tried to kill Erika

25:59

for the same reason he killed Claudine, because

26:02

either one of them could have tied Ortiz to

26:04

Melissa. Finally,

26:07

there was the question of Gislda and Janelle.

26:10

Ortiz, of course, claimed he'd killed them out

26:12

of a desire to clean up the streets, as

26:14

if it were a public service. But

26:17

Alaniz saw things differently. When

26:19

Erika escaped, he said, Ortiz must have

26:21

realized his life as he knew it was over,

26:24

and he decided to take revenge on the community

26:26

he felt was responsible for his downfall.

26:29

I think he resented this population,

26:33

these people who maybe he

26:35

blamed for the situation he

26:37

was in, and he

26:41

was losing it all when Erika escaped,

26:44

and I think he wanted somebody to pay.

26:48

Alaniz presented these theories to the jury,

26:50

but he admitted that Ortiz's true motives remained

26:53

hidden to everyone but him. You

26:55

know, what caused him to do

26:57

this, we'll never know, it's a huge contrast

26:59

to the type of individual that he

27:02

appeared to be. But, you

27:04

know, there was obviously some demons in there that made

27:06

him minimize the

27:09

value of these victims'

27:11

lives, and he decided

27:14

to

27:14

play judge, jury, and executioner.

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28:53

The jury deliberated for five hours

28:55

before finding Ortiz guilty of capital

28:57

murder. A federal judge

28:59

later sentenced him to life in prison without

29:01

the possibility of parole. Perhaps

29:06

the most heart-wrenching moment of the trial occurred

29:08

on its last day when Giselda's brother

29:10

Joey delivered his victim impact statement.

29:14

Both of his parents had been murdered years earlier.

29:17

His sister's death had left him with no living

29:19

relatives. Wearing a t-shirt

29:21

printed with photographs of Melissa, Claudine,

29:24

Janelle, and Giselda, Cantu stared

29:26

at Ortiz as he spoke. My

29:29

name is Joey Cantu.

29:31

Giselda Cantu was many things.

29:34

You'll hear no cliches from me

29:37

about my sister. That she was this or she

29:39

was that. My sister was a good person, yes. But

29:41

she did bad things. Bad

29:44

things not motivated by madness, not motivated

29:46

by hate, but by addiction, by her disease.

29:50

She was sick as were the rest of these girls.

29:54

I'll tell you what my sister was and what always

29:56

will be. That she will always

29:58

be the sickest little girl. who

30:00

would wake up in the middle of the night to walk

30:02

her eight-year-old brother to the rescue without scared

30:04

of the dark.

30:06

Cantu went on to mention that in her last

30:09

moments, Gizelle had tried to dissuade

30:11

Ortiz from committing suicide. She

30:13

did not beg for her life. She

30:15

begged for your life. She said

30:17

it didn't matter what you had done. God was to give you.

30:20

That God would always love you.

30:22

And in the face of that empathy and compassion,

30:24

you

30:25

responded by violently taking her life. And

30:29

it would be so easy to hate you. Too

30:32

easy. But I've always avoided the path

30:35

of these resistance.

30:36

And I don't hate you.

30:39

And I want you to know that I forgive you.

30:41

And I hold no ill will towards you.

30:44

I pray that one day you find the peace that

30:47

you have ripped away from all of us. This

30:53

was the site over at San Agustin Plaza last

30:55

night. Candles flickered over the memories of the four

30:57

victims that Juan David Ortiz admitted to killing

30:59

in a violent murder spree. Not

31:03

long after the murders, La Gordy Loca

31:05

arranged a vigil for the victims. It

31:07

was held at a park outside San Agustin

31:10

Cathedral in downtown Laredo. More

31:13

than 200 mourners showed up, holding

31:15

candles and roses and childhood pictures

31:17

of Melissa, Claudine, Gizelle, and

31:19

Janelle. A local pastor

31:21

led them in prayer. There's no explanation

31:24

for this, he told them. But what I do know is

31:26

that there's a God that restores. Before

31:29

the vigil, Claudine Lueira's sister, Collette,

31:32

had worried that people in Laredo shared Ortiz's

31:34

view that no one cared about the victims.

31:37

Even hearing after what Ortiz said

31:39

that he was cleaning up the streets of Laredo, it

31:43

hurts thinking like, okay, is that what

31:45

everybody thinks of these people, that they're

31:47

trash? But to see

31:49

the community come together and

31:52

to honor these women

31:55

was very heartwarming because, I

31:57

mean, they were somebody's mother, they were somebody's

31:59

daughter.

31:59

somebody's sister, somebody's

32:02

niece,

32:03

you know, they were someone to somebody.

32:05

And just to see all the families

32:07

come together and people that we

32:10

didn't know come give their condolences,

32:13

give us that warm embrace, letting us

32:15

know that, you know what, we're not alone. We're

32:17

not mourning alone. The community

32:19

was mourning with us.

32:24

Like almost everyone who knew Juan David Ortiz,

32:26

I found it hard to square the good man

32:29

he appeared to be with the man who brutally

32:31

killed four innocent women.

32:33

Over the last year, we've spoken with dozens of

32:35

people, including forensic psychologists

32:37

and experts in PTSD. We've

32:40

read thousands of pages of court documents,

32:42

and yet the true motive behind the murders still

32:45

feels out of reach. After

32:47

his sentencing, I wrote Ortiz several letters

32:50

requesting an interview, but he never responded,

32:52

and I never got to ask him some of the questions

32:55

I still have. In closing,

32:57

I thought I would read a few of them here. You

33:01

told investigators that after killing Melissa

33:03

Ramirez, you decided to clean up the streets

33:06

of sex workers because you thought they were trash,

33:09

but their memories of you suggest otherwise. Karen

33:12

told us you offered to help her stop using heroin

33:15

and to get her children back. Erika

33:17

Pana described you as caring and generous and

33:19

said you told her you loved her. How

33:22

did you really feel about them? You

33:25

also told Calderon and Salinas that the VA

33:27

messed you up, but I recently learned

33:29

that years earlier when you were in middle school,

33:32

your father took his own life with a .38 caliber

33:34

pistol. A few years

33:36

later, while you were still a teenager, you

33:38

saw combat in Iraq, only

33:41

to return home and join the Border Patrol and

33:43

find yourself fighting another kind of war at the

33:45

border. Is it possible you

33:47

were messed up for other reasons? I've

33:51

seen the photograph of you, taken after

33:53

you confessed to the murders. Not

33:55

the one newspapers published where you're smirking

33:57

at the camera in a striped prison jumpsuit. It's

34:00

the photo that wasn't published, the

34:02

one in which you're shirtless and crying. You

34:05

seem to understand what you did and

34:07

the amount of pain you caused. In

34:11

that moment, did you also understand

34:13

why you did it? If

34:27

you have questions or information for the Gone South

34:29

team, please email us at gone

34:31

south podcast at gmail.com.

34:35

Gone South is written and narrated by me, Jed

34:37

Lipinski. Executive produced

34:40

by Jed Lipinski, Tom Lipinski and

34:42

Ken Lee. Our story editor

34:44

is Tom Lipinski. Directed

34:46

by Lloyd Lockridge. Produced

34:48

by Anna Worrell. Edited, mixed

34:51

and mastered by Chris Basil. Original

34:53

music by Marshall Chadbourne. Production

34:56

support from Ian Mott, Bill Schultz,

34:58

Bob Tabidor and Sean Cherry. Special

35:01

thanks to JD Crowley, Jenna

35:03

Weiss Berman, Maura Curran, Josephina

35:06

Francis, Kurt Courtney and

35:08

Hilary Schuff. Gone South

35:11

is an Odyssey original. Gone

35:17

South, the Sign Cutter is an Odyssey original

35:20

podcast. For more of the podcasts

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you crave, plus the music, news and

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the Odyssey app today. That's A-U-D-A-C-Y.