The Border Patrol Serial Killer on Trial: Juan David Ortiz, 2022

Name: The Border Patrol Serial Killer on Trial: Juan David Ortiz, 2022
Uploaded: 2023-02-14T00:00:00Z
Duration: 27 min 50 s
Description: KSAT 12's report on the 2022 trial of Juan David Ortiz: the survivor's testimony, the verdict, the sentence, and a victim's brother forgiving him in court. Ortiz is heard only for a few seconds.

KSAT 12's report on the 2022 trial of Juan David Ortiz: the survivor's testimony, the verdict, the sentence, and a victim's brother forgiving him in court. Ortiz is heard only for a few seconds.

Subject: Juan David Ortiz
Recorded: about 2022
Runtime: 27:50

Content warning: Concerns the shooting deaths of four women, autopsy evidence, and a survivor's escape at gunpoint.

The Recording

In September 2018 Juan David Ortiz, an intelligence supervisor with the U.S. Border Patrol in Laredo, Texas, shot four women dead over twelve days. In late 2022 he was tried for capital murder in San Antonio. This video is a KSAT 12 news report from February 2023, an episode of the station's "Texas Crime Stories" made after the trial. It is not an interview with Ortiz: he is heard only for about ten seconds, in a short excerpt of his police interrogation. The report follows the case through the courtroom: the district attorney's opening, the testimony of the woman who escaped from him, the verdict and the automatic sentence of life without parole. In the second half, the reporter who covered the trial talks about it with a colleague, and the report plays the victim impact statement of Guiselda Cantu's brother.

Historical Context

Melissa Ramirez, 29, was killed on September 3, 2018. Claudine Luera, 42, was found on September 13 and died hours later. Then Erika Peña escaped from Ortiz's truck at a gas station and ran to a state trooper. While police searched for him, Ortiz killed Guiselda Cantu, 35, and Janelle Ortiz, 28. He was found on September 15 in his pickup in a hotel parking garage on San Bernardo Avenue, the road where he had picked up the women.

Circumstances of the Recording

At a Webb County Sheriff's Office substation Ortiz at first said he knew nothing. After several hours, according to the investigators, he asked for his handcuffs to be removed and described each killing. The roughly ten-hour interrogation was played to the jury. The defense argued that he had said he did not want to talk and that the confession was not voluntary, and that he suffered from PTSD and the effects of prescription drugs. Weeks before the trial, the district attorney said the state would not seek death, in part at the wishes of victims' families. The jury convicted him after more than five hours of deliberation.

What the Recording Covers

Ortiz is heard only in one short excerpt from the interrogation, about ten seconds long and partly unclear; KSAT's companion article prints similar lines, in which he describes telling a woman to walk away and then shooting her. The reporter describes how calmly he recounted the killings on tape, imitating the gun, and how he broke down only when calls with his children were played. The program includes Erika Peña's testimony about the night she escaped, a clip of Melissa Ramirez's mother saying she wanted him to "suffer every day" in prison, and the statement of Guiselda Cantu's brother, who told Ortiz that his sister had tried to talk him out of suicide before he killed her, and that he forgave him.

What Makes the Recording Significant

Ortiz did not testify (the defense called no witnesses), so his interrogation is the main public account of the killings in his own words. This report preserves a fragment of it, a few seconds long, together with the courtroom record of the verdict and sentence, and a victim impact statement in which a brother who had himself served more than twenty years in prison for murder offered the killer forgiveness.

Archival Importance

The case drew national attention because the killer was a serving federal law-enforcement supervisor. KSAT streamed the trial in full; this report, by the station that covered the trial day by day, is its summary of that record.

Important Caveats

Ortiz's own words in this video amount to a few seconds and are partly unclear; a second interrogation excerpt, in which the narration says he gave his motive, is not intelligible in the machine transcripts. Most of the video is KSAT's narration and the reporters' conversation. The defense's challenge to the confession is part of the record; the jury accepted it as evidence. The women's work and addictions are described in the program by the reporters and by family members; the page copy does not dwell on them. Two KSAT promotional spots (about 03:53 to 04:48 and 06:40 to 07:51) are part of the upload.

Narrator: Warning: some details of this case are a bit graphic and may not be suitable for all ages. Listener discretion is advised.

Narrator: He took his authority for granted and calmly told investigators how he killed his four victims: Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Luera, Guiselda Cantu and Janelle Ortiz. Their names will never be forgotten, as now their families can be at peace that justice has been served. This is Texas Crime Stories: The Border Patrol Serial Killer, Part 2.

Narrator: Last year we told you about the case of former Border Patrol agent Juan David Ortiz. He was accused of the murders of four women in 2018. In late November, early December last year, his trial took place. There we heard more details that weren't known, as well as we hear from the only woman who survived his attack, and the victims' families. Let's start first with opening statements. Webb County District Attorney Isidro Alaniz was the lead prosecutor, and he laid out their case, including revealing that the entire interview Ortiz had with deputies would be shown.

Isidro Alaniz: You will see and you will hear, through his own words, how he took each woman to their last resting place.

Narrator: As for the defense, attorney Joel Perez said the state had it wrong, and that Ortiz was suffering from PTSD, and the numerous prescriptions doctors prescribed him were causing him problems, and that he never willingly confessed to murder. The first witness to take the stand: the woman who broke the case, Erika Peña. Some background about Erika: on the stand she says she was a drug addict and prostitute at the time in 2018 when she was picked up by Ortiz, who had been a client of hers before. Since her attack, Erika has been in and out of jail as well as rehab. At the time of testimony, she said she had been on methadone to help with her sobriety and had been sober for 11 months. Erika spoke about the night she was attacked, and how she noticed Ortiz acting differently, and how he mentioned her friend, Melissa Ramirez.

Erika Peña: All of a sudden he said that he was afraid that they would check his DNA, because he was second to last, if it was Melissa.

Narrator: Erika went on to say, at this point she felt uneasy and had a feeling that Ortiz was behind her friend's murder. She said she threw up, and blamed it on not having much to eat for the day. This is when Ortiz took her to get food at a nearby gas station, and that is when Erika said it turned for the worse.

Erika Peña: As soon as he took out the gun, he just stared at me, didn't say anything. I opened the door. I took off running. I snapped.

Attorney: You got off the truck, you said, without your blouse?

Erika Peña: Yeah.

Attorney: What happened to your blouse?

Erika Peña: I don't know.

Attorney: How did you lose your blouse?

Erika Peña: I don't even know. Everything would happen so fast.

Narrator: Erika ran straight to a DPS trooper who was putting gas in his unit, yelling for help. It was then police got the break they were looking for. But what they didn't know is that while they were looking for Ortiz, two more women would be killed, something they didn't know until they finally arrested Ortiz and took him in for questioning.

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Narrator: Juan David Ortiz was found in the back of a pickup truck parked in a hotel parking garage on the same road, San Bernardo, that he picked up his victims from. Once at a Webb County Sheriff's Office substation, Ortiz was read his Miranda rights and said he didn't know anything about any murdered women. But then, after several hours, Ortiz asks for his handcuffs to be taken off and begins to give, in great detail, how he murdered each woman.

Juan David Ortiz: [unclear: "I'll tell you to walk away" / "I'm telling you to walk away"]. You're not listening to me. [unclear: "Come here" / imitated gunshot sounds]. [pause] Take a few steps. [unclear: "Try to go one time" / "shot her one time"].

Narrator: This interview, crucial for the state, as Ortiz also gave motive.

Juan David Ortiz: [inaudible]

Narrator: But the defense saying Ortiz never granted permission, and that investigators on the case didn't take no for an answer when Ortiz told them he didn't want to talk. Regardless, the video was already shown to jurors. They would then deliberate, after eight days of trial, for over five hours. Here's the verdict.

Judge Oscar Hale: [unclear: "The verdict form" / "The jury formed"]: We, the jury, find the defendant, Juan David Ortiz, guilty of the offense of capital murder, as charged in the indictment and as instructed in the charge.

Narrator: And then he was automatically, officially sentenced by Judge Oscar Hale.

Judge Oscar Hale: As you know, I'm sure your attorneys have informed you, and you've heard throughout the trial, this charge of capital murder has an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility for parole.

Ksat Promotion: Hello, KSAT viewers, I'm Stefania Jimenez, anchor and reporter at KSAT 12 in San Antonio. On weeknights, you'll catch me on the Nightbeat. Many of you want the news before 10 p.m., and this is for you. It's called The 9 at Night, a live, nine-minute digital newscast airing at, you guessed it, 9 p.m. Call it a bite-sized show that's tailor-made for you. You'll get the day's top stories, weather, upcoming community events and feel-good stories. Find us on YouTube, KSAT.com and KSAT Plus, available on Amazon Fire Stick, Apple TV, Roku or any way you stream, and of course via podcast. So like or subscribe wherever you get your audio; that way you'll get the alert when each episode drops. That starts later this month. Until then, head on over to KSAT.com and sign up to be a KSAT Insider. That's where you'll get the inside scoops on all of our new and exciting projects.

Co-Host: So Erica, this was another really big trial that you covered, one of many, but this is another trial that we streamed gavel to gavel. Talk to me about that coverage for you.

Erica Hernandez: This was, this was different, because this was a very high-profile case, in that a lot of national media was here as well. So this tiny courtroom was packed, not just with media, but you got to remember there was four victims, so their families, as well as family for Juan David Ortiz. In these trials, you just have to remember to pay attention to the case. And being that Alaniz is the district attorney in Webb County, him presenting and being the lead prosecutor also added a different element. But from the get-go he was very strong about this case. He came in strong with his opening and his closing arguments.

Erica Hernandez: But there was a lot of moments in this case that kind of threw us off. [unclear: "Ortiz" / "one or at least" / "one or these"] never showed much emotion throughout the showing of autopsy photos for these women and how they were found. But he did show emotion once, toward the end of the trial. They played calls he had made from jail, speaking to his wife and his kids. Some of this was suppressed and didn't make it, and some of it didn't make it to trial after a motion was filed by the defense. But this is the first time, when he's hearing his children talk to him on the phone, that he breaks down. He is sobbing. He has his hands over his head. So obviously I don't know exactly what he's thinking at the moment, but not being in his children's lives obviously is what affects him.

Erica Hernandez: But the murders of these women, nothing. And he so calmly talks about how he killed each of them in great detail. He puts his hands up and, like, shows a gun, and how he pulled the gun up and shot them. He makes the noise of the gun, and talks about how these women, how they were just nothing. And that was just very... I couldn't imagine how those families felt. There was just so much, me as a person who didn't know these women. It didn't matter what their job was or what they did, how they lived their lives, but nobody deserved to die that way.

Co-Host: Was that one of the most shocking parts of this trial for you? His lack of emotion when it came to these women, and then emotion when it came to hearing his own children and his wife?

Erica Hernandez: Yeah, it was just, and just sitting there, like, you see him, and obviously he looks different than what he did in 2018 when he was arrested. He's, like, he's lost weight, he's kind of pale, he's wearing glasses. Of course, they clean them up for court. But yeah, not seeing any emotion. There was, for instance, for Melissa Ramirez, because they go through each of the victims and their autopsy reports, how she was found, which we don't really talk about too much when we're giving the overview of the trial. But she was found alongside the roadway, face down, and she was still clutching a bag of M&M's in her hand when they found her, in the photos. And just thinking to myself, that's somebody's daughter, you just left there like nothing. It was really, it was hard to see these photos.

Erica Hernandez: And then you see the photos of Claudine, kind of the same way, laid out on the side of the road; of Guiselda Cantu, who had more trauma than the other victims, she had some blunt force trauma to the face, not just gunshots; and then Janelle Ortiz. The last two victims, they didn't even know about until they interviewed him, where he's telling them in great detail, "And then I picked up this one, and I picked up this one," all on the same roadway, in the same area. And these, you know, Laredo is a city, but it's not a big city like San Antonio, so these women knew each other, other people knew them. And it was just, I can't imagine what those families went through, sitting there. And we saw their emotion oftentimes. They sat there through everything, even photos of their loved ones, autopsy photos, and it was hard for them, and you felt for them. And this is one of the trials that I won't forget, because these victims deserved value. They deserved more than what they were given. And we'll talk more about them here in a moment; we'll hear from their families as well.

Co-Host: I want to ask you, were you surprised at all with this verdict?

Erica Hernandez: I was a little more surprised about how long it took. It took over five hours. But what I've kind of noticed in these capital murder cases, because it is sometimes a life-or-death situation for the defendant, there's a lot to consider. There's a lot for the jury to take into consideration. Do we send this man, who we've just heard talking on the phone with his children and his wife, to prison for the rest of his life without parole? And I could see how that might weigh on somebody. So I think it also is good for us to remember that these jurors are taking their jobs seriously and actually thinking about everything presented to them. So that gives you kind of some solace, that they just don't, "Oh, nope, he's guilty," or "Nope, nope, he's not guilty." You know, they're thinking about it, they're having conversations about it. So it's good to see them actually taking their job as a juror seriously.

Co-Host: I want to throw something, something else at you here with this sentencing. It's capital murder, like we heard the judge say. Do we know why that capital punishment was then taken off the table? Why the death penalty was taken off the table?

Erica Hernandez: Yeah. So all up, the entire summer, we knew this was a death penalty case. We had reported about it in our Open Court special. Literally weeks before trial started, the DA made an announcement, of Webb County, that death was no longer on the table, that the sentence would be life in prison if found guilty. And when asked why, he said a big part of that was the families of the victims. They didn't want him to get the death penalty. I specifically spoke to Melissa's mother for our Open Court special back in Laredo, and I asked her the same question, and this was before that decision was made. I go, "What do you want to see happen to this man if found guilty?"

Melissa Ramirez'S Mother: I want him to suffer every day in jail for the rest of his life. I don't want him to get the easy way out and be killed. I want him to suffer, and hopefully one day he would have some kind of remorse for what he did.

Co-Host: I have chills when you were just talking. That is, I mean, that's, it's wild for them to share that perspective, because I think so many times they said, "My loved one was killed. I want death. The person who did this, throw the book at them." Right. And for these people to say, "You know what? No, I don't want the death penalty. I want him to think about this every single day for the rest of his life." And as his children and his wife call him in prison, he's going to still have to think about this. That's powerful. Let's go back to the victims and talk about them. These are people that you got to know through their families. Talk to me about them.

Erica Hernandez: Yeah. So obviously the first victim was Melissa Ramirez. We spoke and got to know her mother, in Laredo. We met with her, and your heart breaks for this woman as soon as you begin to talk to her, because they are left with some very unfair circumstances. Some background on Melissa: she was, of course, she was a drug addict. She was prostituting to get money for her addiction. Her mother has been taking care of her children. But her mother also lost another child years before Melissa was killed; she lost a son due to cancer. So finding out her daughter was murdered was really hard for her, and it still is very hard for her. And now she's taking care of two children for the rest of their lives, which are Melissa's two kids. And she's like, it's unfair that she was never given the chance to beat her addiction, to see her children live and grow up, and be there.

Erica Hernandez: And this very much is still very painful for her, even though it's, you know, been several years later, and it's still something she's dealing with. She was there every day in court, beginning to end. She sat there with Melissa's sister, her other daughter, and they had pretty harsh words [unclear: "for Ortiz" / "for thieves"] during victim impact statements. They are ones, usually sometimes you see in victim impact statements some forgiveness, but they did not hold back, which is rightfully their right to be angry with him. This was the first time they were able to speak to him face to face.

Erica Hernandez: And one thing she told me before the trial started, when there was a lot of pretrial hearings going on as we got to trial: at one point, during one of those trials, she's like, "I just was filled with rage. I got up and I called him in Spanish asesino," which is assassin. "And then he just turned and, like, smirked at her," and she's like, "I just broke down," from hearing, from seeing him do that to me, with just no, like, no empathy at all. And this just kind of shows you what the families had to go through in this trial, sitting there.

Erica Hernandez: Also, we heard from Claudine Luera's family. They gave a victim impact statement. And kind of, these all women kind of had the same backstory. They were prostitutes, they were drug addicts. Guiselda Cantu was another one. And then Janelle Ortiz was a transgender woman, who was, you know, living on and off the streets as well, with a drug addiction. And actually, before, you know, Janelle was killed, she had told her family, "I don't have a good feeling right now. I feel like something's going to happen to me soon." And they were like, "Oh, no, don't worry, you'll be fine. Whatever. Just take care of yourself out there." Little did they know, days later she would be murdered. And she didn't fight. She knew as soon as she got into the truck. She was like, "You're the guy that's killing all the prostitutes." And he told her, "Yeah." She just got off the truck, she walked a few steps, and he shot her in the back of the head.

Co-Host: I think hearing from their family really humanizes who they are and who they were, so many times. I think we hear someone dealing with substance abuse disorder, who is a sex worker, and we don't have a lot of sympathy for that lifestyle. But substance abuse disorder is a disease, and it's not one that you can just flip a switch and you're over it.

Erica Hernandez: Exactly.

Co-Host: It takes a lot of work. And I think people who don't know someone who's dealt with that, or don't have that empathy for someone who is going through that, this lifestyle doesn't make sense. But they're dealing with a disease, a very real disease. I mean, just like any other disease that we encounter in life. And so you need to extend that empathy and that sympathy to them. And sex work might be their only course of action to try and support this disease that they have, and maybe they don't have anywhere else they can turn to. Maybe they don't have a lifeline they can go to and say, please help me. So many of us are fortunate that we can turn to that and turn to someone else, but maybe they don't have that. So I think, and I appreciate you sharing that about all of these women, because we oftentimes forget about that when we see someone who's living a different lifestyle than we are. So thank you for sharing that.

Erica Hernandez: Yeah. And the hardest part of covering any trial or any case are the victim impact statements. This is very emotional for me. I'm oftentimes sitting in the courtroom, like, a lump in my throat, trying not to cry, because you just feel the emotion these families have gone through, and you just, you hurt for them. You wouldn't want anybody to feel that pain. And I've heard many victim impact statements, but Guiselda Cantu's brother, Joey, probably gave one of the most impactful statements I've ever heard, and I want you to listen to it.

Joey [surname Unclear]: My name is Joey [unclear: "come through" / surname]. [unclear: "Shelley, you started to come through with" / "Guiselda"] many things, and yes, she was a drug addict, she was a prostitute, and she was a felon. But she wasn't only these things, and maybe one day she would have ceased being these things, as her family had always hoped. But you have forever [unclear: "wrested" / "robbed us of" / "rather said" / "wrongness of"] that hope, that one day she would come back to us. It is said that hope springs eternal, and it's true, until someone like you comes along and completely and utterly destroys that hope.

Joey: You'll hear no cliches from me about my sister, that she was this or she was that. My sister was a good person, yes, but she did bad things. Bad things not motivated by [unclear: "malice" / "man"], not motivated by hate, but by addiction, by her disease. She was sick, as were the rest of these girls. I'll tell you what my sister was and what she always will be. She will always be the six-year-old little girl... [pause; inaudible] She was all I had, bro. She was all I had. You took the last living member of my family, man.

Joey: She will always be the six-year-old little girl who would wake up in the middle of the night to walk her eight-year-old brother to the restroom, because I was scared of the dark. She will always be the little sister who defended me from bullies when we were in elementary school, even fistfighting them. And she'll always be the little sister who cried just because she saw me crying. My sister was empathetic, and she was compassionate, as evidenced by your conversation with her: her knowing what was likely going to happen to her, and so choosing to talk you out of suicide, showing you compassion and sympathy. She did not beg for her life. She begged for your life. She told you it didn't matter what you had done, that God would forgive you, that God would always love you. And that was my sister in a nutshell.

Joey: And in the face of that empathy and compassion, that was surely God-given, you responded by violently taking her life. I guess it's true, I guess it's true that no good deed goes unpunished. I've now had to live a life in which I've endured and suffered the murder of my mother, the murder of my father, and now the murder of my sister. It would be so easy to hate you. Too easy. But I've always avoided the path of least resistance, and I don't hate you. I don't hate you at all, and I won't hate you. But I do hate what you did, not only to her, but to all of us.

Joey: And here's irony: roughly 26 and a half years ago, I stood where you now stand, accused and convicted of murder, sentenced to 40 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. I spent 22 and a half of my, 22 years and 11 months of my life in prison, from the age of 15 to the age of 38. When I was [unclear: "granted" / "ran a"] parole, the sister of my victim wrote me and told me that she forgave me for what I had done, and that I should forgive myself as well. And now I find myself here in front of the person who killed my little sister, and I want you to know that I forgive you, and I hold no ill will towards you, man. I pray that one day you find the peace that you have ripped away from all of us.

Joey: You spoke of God's ability for miracles. [unclear: "Well" / "Where" / "For"] your miracle is that you get to continue living, to continue to see and hear from your loved ones, while we no longer can. When in any other circumstance you would be facing the death sentence, I know that it was me, the brother of Guiselda, who asked the DA to consider going without the death penalty, because your family has suffered as well. No parent should ever have to watch their child die. Even yours. I leave you with the words of my sister: "No matter what you've done, it doesn't matter. God will forgive you, and God loves you." May you find peace and freedom in him.

Joey: But I'll forever wonder if maybe Erika was not who she was, if Erika was not a prostitute and a drug addict, if swifter action could have been taken, would they have believed her if she would have been an upstanding citizen? Would it have taken four hours to find him? Three hours, two hours, however long it took. [unclear: "You're not entirely at fault" / "Did not entirely or thought"]; we were failed at times by the justice system too.

Erica Hernandez: That was just one of probably six of the statements from the families. And when I say victim impact statements are hard to hear, this is why. I didn't, like, I mean, I didn't know that she convinced Juan David Ortiz not to commit suicide. So as they were driving, as he explains it in his interrogation video, he was driving with her around the same area the other women were found, and kept saying, you know, "My life is over. I'm done with my life. I'm going to end it, so I'm leaving you here." He tells her, "Walk away. San Antonio is this way, Laredo is that way." And she starts walking, and walks back and says, what she tells him: "God will forgive you. Don't do this. God loves you." He tells her, "Listen, I told you to walk away. Why aren't you listening to me?" And then shoots her. I mean, that, people can judge her for decisions she made in life, but I think that is the way that she should be seen. Her compassion.

Co-Host: Her compassion, absolutely. And that's what her brother said. You know, she's made mistakes. Who hasn't? Every single person here has made a mistake in life. But she should be defined by that, because that act of compassion and selflessness, I mean, is unmatched.

Erica Hernandez: Exactly. Juan David Ortiz is now serving life without parole at a prison outside of Houston. We requested an interview after his trial, but he has since denied our request. ---