S3|E6: The Motive

Summary

Gone South - Season 3, Episode 6: "The Motive"

Released on November 22, 2023, "Gone South" is a gripping weekly podcast series by Audacy Podcasts that delves into Southern-themed crimes. In Season 3, Episode 6 titled "The Motive," host Jed Lipinski explores the chilling case of Juan David Ortiz, a Border Patrol agent accused of murdering four women in Laredo, Texas. This episode intricately examines Ortiz's background, the investigation, the trial, and the profound impact on the community and victims' families.

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Introduction to the Case

The episode opens with Brandon Caro, a retired Navy combat medic and a former colleague of Ortiz, recounting his shock upon learning that Ortiz, whom he knew as a trustworthy and professional individual, was arrested for multiple murders.

Brandon Caro (01:13):
"I saw a photo of him and I was like, oh my God, that's the guy I used to work with. I was just so shocked because my memory of him was this guy who was good at his job, everyone liked..."

Caro’s disbelief sets the tone for the episode, highlighting the unsettling reality that someone perceived as reliable and compassionate could commit heinous crimes.

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Background of Juan David Ortiz

Juan David Ortiz, a Border Patrol agent, was charged with the murders of four women in Laredo over a span of two weeks. Authorities labeled him a "rogue Asian" and a serial killer who targeted vulnerable individuals in the community.

Jed Lipinski (03:47):
"Border Patrol agent Juan David Ortiz remains behind bars tonight, accused of murdering four women in Laredo in the last two weeks."

Adding to the gravity, Ortiz was not the first Border Patrol agent accused of murder that year. Four months prior, Agent Ronald Borgos Aviles was charged with stabbing his mistress and their one-year-old son to death.

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Institutional Response and Initial Reactions

Laredo’s Mayor, Pete Sands, criticized U.S. Customs and Border Protection leadership for failing to identify dangerous individuals within their ranks. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost vehemently defended her agency’s integrity.

Carla Provost (04:57):
"First and foremost, I do want to reiterate in South Texas, I've got a workforce of approximately 6,000 and I do not want a couple of rogue individuals being characterized how my men and women work and who they are because they are consummate professionals."

An official from the Border Patrol’s Office of Special Responsibility emphasized that Ortiz had no prior indications of potential for such violence, citing only a dismissed complaint regarding a minor incident with an immigrant.

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Defense: PTSD and Mental Health Struggles

Defense attorney Joey Taez explored Ortiz’s mental health, suggesting that PTSD from his military service and subsequent Border Patrol duties might have contributed to his actions. Ortiz had been diagnosed with PTSD by the VA two months before the murders and had sought treatment for severe anxiety and drinking problems.

Joey Taez (07:23):
"Taez suspected the VA may have irresponsibly prescribed medications to Ortiz and failed to properly monitor him."

Colleagues described Ortiz as both professional and, at times, awkward and obsessive, hinting at internal struggles. Ortiz’s wife and mother portrayed him as a loving and nonviolent individual, complicating the narrative of his motive.

Carla Provost (07:53):
"...we as a country have done a very poor job of helping the young men and women that we send across in wars in dealing with their post traumatic stress."

Ortiz’s reluctance to disclose suicidal thoughts to his supervisors further underscores the stigma surrounding mental health within the Border Patrol.

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Prosecution: Building the Case Against Ortiz

District Attorney Alaniz pursued capital murder charges, initially considering hate crime classifications due to the targeted nature of the murders. The prosecution presented substantial evidence, including a confession, a murder weapon, and ballistic matches linking Ortiz’s gun to the crime scenes.

Joey Taez (21:05):
"Had the defense tried to argue that Ortiz was suffering from some kind of PTSD or medication-induced psychosis? Alaniz said he would have pointed to Ortiz's wife and supervisor, who'd noticed no change in his personality before or after the murders."

Despite these strong evidences, the prosecution struggled to establish a clear motive. Alaniz theorized potential personal conflicts, such as jealousy over romantic relationships or retaliation against the community, but admitted the true motive remained elusive.

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The Trial and Verdict

The trial, initially scheduled for 2021, was delayed until December 2022 due to the pandemic. The prosecution's focus shifted from hate crimes to standard murder charges after the victims' families advocated for life imprisonment over the death penalty.

District Attorney Alaniz (19:19):
"We felt that the elements were there for the Capitol. Murder for Death Penalty because of the..."

During the trial, Ortiz’s confession and weapon were central to the prosecution's case. The defense attempted to challenge the confession's validity and discredit key witnesses, particularly Erica Pena, who had admitted heroin use the night of Ortiz’s arrest.

Alaniz (22:18):
"First thing a lot of juries want to know is motive. Why does somebody do what they do?"

The jury deliberated for five hours, ultimately finding Ortiz guilty of capital murder. A federal judge sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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Impact on the Community and Victims' Families

The murders deeply affected Laredo’s community and the families of the victims. A poignant victim impact statement was delivered by Joy Cantu, sister of Giselda Loera, one of the victims.

Joy Cantu (29:56):
"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."

The community held vigils to honor the victims, emphasizing their humanity and the collective mourning process.

Joey Taez (31:30):
"To honor these women was very heartwarming... And just to see all the families come together and people that we didn't know come give their condolences..."

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Unanswered Questions and Reflections

Despite thorough investigations, the episode highlights lingering questions about Ortiz’s true motive and the interplay between his military service, Border Patrol duties, and mental health struggles. Host Jed Lipinski presents unanswered questions that remain:

• Ortiz’s True Feelings: How did Ortiz genuinely feel about his victims, considering their differing recollections of his character?

• Intersection of Personal Trauma and Professional Duties: Did Ortiz’s military experiences and Border Patrol responsibilities exacerbate his PTSD?

• Impact of Mental Health Stigma: How did the fear of career repercussions influence Ortiz’s willingness to seek help?

Joey Taez (32:04):
"But to see the community come together... We're not alone. We're not mourning alone. We're not mourning alone. The community was mourning with us."

These reflections underscore the complexities of understanding human behavior, especially when intertwined with personal trauma and institutional pressures.

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Conclusion

In "The Motive," "Gone South" meticulously unpacks the tragic case of Juan David Ortiz, weaving together testimony, expert analysis, and emotional narratives to present a multifaceted view of the crime. The episode not only investigates the surface details of the murders but also delves into the underlying issues of mental health, institutional responsibilities, and the elusive nature of human motives. As the community heals and seeks understanding, the episode leaves listeners contemplating the intricate layers that drive individuals to commit unimaginable acts.

Notable Quotes:

• Brandon Caro (01:13):
  "You never know a person. You can never know a person."

• Carla Provost (07:53):
  "We as a country have done a very poor job of helping the young men and women that we send across in wars in dealing with their post traumatic stress."

• Joy Cantu (29:56):
  "It would be so easy to hate you. Too easy. But I've always abhorred the path of least resistance. And I don't hate you."

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Credits: Written and narrated by Jed Lipinski. Executive Produced by Jed Lipinski, Tom Lipinski, and Ken Lee. Story Editor: Tom Lipinski. Directed by Lloyd Lockridge. Produced by Anna Worrell. Edited, Mixed, and Mastered by Chris Basil. Original Music by Marshall Chadbourne. Production Support from Ian Mott, Bill Schultz, Bob Tabador, and Sean Cherry. Special Thanks to JD Crowley, Jenna Weiss Berman, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney, and Hilary Schuff. "Gone South" is an Audacy original.

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For more information or to share your thoughts, visit [e-mail].

Transcript

[Jed Lipinski]

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[Brandon Caro]

So I remember driving in my car at night in Austin, and I was listening to NPR and the news bulletin came on and I remember the anchor saying a man had been arrested from the Border Patrol for killing four women in Laredo. And I remember just thinking to myself, huh, I know a guy who works at Border Patrol. And that was it. I didn't think anything of it, right? And then the next day I heard the news bulletin again, but this time they said that he used to be in the Navy. And my, I mean, my, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I was like, no way, no way. And I raced home and I got on the Internet and I did all these Google searches and I saw a photo of him and I was like, oh my God, that's the guy I used to work with. I was just so shocked because my memory of him was this guy who was good at his job, everyone liked, was squared away. He was like someone you would trust, a person with authority that you would trust. It just made me think, man, wow.

[Joey Taez]

You just.

[Brandon Caro]

You never know a person. You can never know a person.

[Joey Taez]

That was Brandon Caro, a retired Navy combat medic who met Juan David Ortiz in 2008. The two of them worked together at a training facility in San Antonio that prepared other medics for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. Like many who knew Ortiz, Caro had a hard time believing that he was capable of committing such appalling acts of violence. In the days and months after his arrest, Caro and many others would attempt to reconcile the kind and generous man Ortiz appeared to be with the monster that he'd become. As they would discover, there were no easy answers. This is gone South. Hello, I'm Jed Lipinski. Episode 6 Squared Away.

[Jed Lipinski]

Border Patrol agent Juan David Ortiz remains behind bars tonight, accused of murdering four women in Laredo in the last two weeks. Authorities are calling him a rogue Asian and a serial killer. They say he preyed on some of the most vulnerable members of the community.

[Joey Taez]

Laredo residents were relieved by the arrest of Juan David Ortiz. They could sleep easier knowing that a serial killer was off the street. But they were also deeply disturbed to learn that a Border Patrol agent was behind the murders, especially because Ortiz wasn't the first Laredo border agent accused of murder that year. Just four months earlier, Agent Ronald Borgos Aviles was charged with stabbing his mistress and their one year old son to death in a park in northwest Laredo. Laredo Mayor Pete Sands pointed the finger at U.S. customs and Border Protection leadership, asking why they had been unable to detect such dangerous individuals within their ranks. The Monday after Ortiz's arrest, Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost traveled from Washington, D.C. to Laredo for a joint press conference with District Attorney Alaniz. She defended the integrity of her agency.

[Jed Lipinski]

First and foremost, I do want to reiterate in South Texas, I've got a workforce of approximately 6,000 and I do not want a couple of rogue individuals being characterized of how my men and women work and who they are because they are consummate professionals. They work diligently day in and day out.

[Joey Taez]

An official in the Border Patrol's Office of Special Responsibility later added, quote, there was nothing in his background certainly that would have alerted CBP or have indicated Mr. Ortiz was capable of anything like this. Only one complaint, which was later dismissed, had ever been filed against Ortiz after an immigrant he apprehended said that he had taken a cigarette from him. Two months before the murders, Ortiz had even passed his mandatory five year background review, which included a psychological and emotional health evaluation. Provost and others made clear that Ortiz had committed his crimes as a civilian, not in his capacity as a Border Patrol agent. As such, he was not the federal government's problem. They would let Texas criminal justice system determine his fate.

[Carla Provost]

When I first talked to David Ortiz, or David, just like I would do in any other case, I first start talking to him about background.

[Joey Taez]

This is Joey Taez The Laredo defense attorney, who you may remember from episode one, he was among the first to suspect Melissa Ramirez's killer was law enforcement. Coincidentally, he was assigned to represent Ortiz.

[Carla Provost]

You meet a young man who is 30 some odd years old, never been arrested for any violent offense, never had any, you know, domestic violence, insinuation from spouse or history, and they're accused of four murders. You would think that there would be something in his past that would draw you to that.

[Joey Taez]

But as far as he could tell, there wasn't. Taez had listened to the interrogation, and for him, the only red flag was that six months before Ortiz admitted to killing four women, the VA had diagnosed him with PTSD and prescribed him a cocktail of psychiatric drugs. During his early days at the DA's office, TAES had worked closely with a number of veterans who'd bemoaned the treatment they'd received from Laredo's VA hospital. Taes suspected the VA may have irresponsibly prescribed medications to Ortiz and failed to properly monitor him. The VA declined to comment for privacy reasons.

[Carla Provost]

I have learned, like it's not unusual to find out that the VA doesn't do as thorough of a job all the time as they could or should. Unfortunately, we as a country have done a very poor job of helping the young men and women that we send across in wars in dealing with their post traumatic stress and dealing with be ugly stuff that they witness over there. And so I thought that might be an issue.

[Joey Taez]

Taz then spoke to members of Ortiz's family. His mother, a clerk in San Antonio, described him as nonviolent, caring and well respected, the golden child of the family. His wife, Daniela, described Ortiz as a loving husband and a good father to their two kids. She had no idea that he'd been sleeping with sex workers, she said, and was completely shocked by the murders. Since he began treatment for ptsd, Daniela had noticed no change in his personality. As Taez looked deeper into the case, he identified other issues that might help Ortiz's defense. First, there was Erika Pena, the woman who'd escaped Ortiz the night of his arrest. Tiaz learned that she'd admitted to being on heroin that night, which in Tiaz's mind, may have rendered her an unreliable witness. Tayes also believed authorities may have failed to get a warrant before arresting Ortiz and searching his truck, where they found his gun. And perhaps most important, Tas questioned whether Ortiz's confession had been coerced.

[Carla Provost]

So law enforcement officers, usually what they try to do is always make it seem like the person in custody is speaking voluntarily, which if you pull out 20 AR15s and point them at my face, anything I do after that's not really voluntary.

[Joey Taez]

If the defense managed to get Ortiz's confession and his weapon thrown out before trial, Tiaz thought Ortiz could not only avoid the death penalty, he could even win a not guilty verdict. But while Taez prepared his defense of Ortiz, a new set of investigators for The Webb County DA's office launched their own probe into Ortiz's background. Of primary interest were his Border Patrol colleagues. We reached out to more than a dozen current and former Border Patrol agents who'd worked with Ortiz, and none of them agreed to speak on the record, but we were able to obtain transcripts of their interviews with DA investigators. What follows is based on those transcripts. On the subject of Ortiz's personality, his colleagues were divided. Some described him as smart, courteous, and professional. Others said he was awkward, strange, and standoffish. At work, he often whistled bird sounds and sang military songs to himself. He rarely spoke about his family, never socialized with agents outside work, and spent hours a day on Facebook, where he closely followed Ligordi Loca's livestream. It was known that he took medication for anxiety, and several colleagues remarked on his obsessive tendencies. When Ortiz fixed his mind on something, one colleague said he had to accomplish it. Like his wife, most of Ortiz's colleagues at the Border intel center had noticed no change in his personality prior to his arrest. His supervisor said he never observed anything in Ortiz's behavior that might qualify as a red flag. And yet a few agents did notice a change. In August 2018, a month before the murders, one of Ortiz's subordinates said Ortiz admitted he was, quote, wrestling with some demons and struggling with alcohol abuse. A week before his arrest, Ortiz told him that he'd, quote, fallen off the wagon hard and he doubted he could get back on. Investigators were itching to know how familiar Ortiz was with the investigation into his own crimes and whether he'd interfered with their efforts to solve the case. In the interrogation, Ortiz said all he'd done was run the license plate of the Laredo cop suspected of killing Melissa Ramirez. His Border intel colleagues confirmed that Ortiz had played almost no role in the investigation, but he had eagerly taken part in the gossip and speculation about the case. He told one agent that the killer must have been familiar with the area around Jeffries Road where Melissa was killed. He pestered intel analysts for updates about the first suspect and became irate when he was released, shouting, that's bullshit. Everyone was shocked by Ortiz's arrest. As one agent put it, I did not believe Ortiz was capable of anything like that. But weeks after the fact, comments Ortiz made now seem freighted with meaning. A few days after Melissa's murder and before Claudine's body was found, several agents were talking about the case with Ortiz. When one of them suggested a serial killer might be involved. According to one of the agents present, Ortiz smiled and said, that's what I was telling this guy. What if it's a serial killer?

[Jed Lipinski]

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[Joey Taez]

Brandon Caro, the Navy medic from the top of the episode who'd worked with Ortiz 10 years earlier, shared the disbelief that Ortiz's family and colleagues felt. And he too was troubled by the memory of something Ortiz said.

[Brandon Caro]

I waited a couple years after high school to join the Navy, but he joined right out of high school. And I remember one time we were talking and he told me that he was in the invasion and I was like, so you were like 19? During Operation Iraqi Freedom? And he kind of looked at me and he gave me this look and he was like, yeah. He nodded his head and the look was kind of like. It was like I was so young, you know, and I saw such horrible things, and we never got into specifics, but, like, I could tell that it made a huge impact on him. These are these moments that, like, I didn't really think had any significance at the time, you know, and then thinking back about them now, it's like it has a different kind of meaning now, given what's happened.

[Joey Taez]

Not long after his conversation with Caro in 2009, Ortiz was honorably discharged from the Navy and joined the Border Patrol, where he would spend the next nine years of his career. In his confession, Ortiz had talked at length about the harrowing months he spent in Iraq, but he'd said almost nothing about the years he spent with Border Patrol, years that saw record levels of migrant deaths and apprehensions and Border Patrol agents branded as monsters for separating kids from their parents at the border. Why had Ortiz joined the Border Patrol? What had he seen as an agent? And how had the experience impacted the smart, sensitive professional his family and colleagues described? Ortiz was silent on the subject. All we know comes secondhand. A friend of Ortiz's named Eric Aguilar, who'd met him at a Marine Corps base in California, claimed Ortiz had altruistic motives for joining CBP. As he told Texas Monthly magazine in 2019, Ortiz, quote, didn't just want to stop the bad guys. He wanted to use his medical skills to help migrants who had been traveling for days in the desert just to get to the United States. Aguilar, who knew Ortiz as doc, I know this might be hard to understand right now, but Doc really cared about people. Over the next few years, Ortiz rose rapidly through the Border Patrol's ranks, starting in the Catulla Border Station, a tiny outpost between San Antonio and Laredo. His duties ranged from apprehending drug mules and undocumented immigrants to intercepting vehicles suspected of drug trafficking and human smuggling. After moving to Laredo, he conducted undercover surveillance and raided migrant stash houses before his promotion to intelligence supervisor. Professionally, Ortiz was excelling, but Aguilar said he struggled with the demands of the job. As he told Texas Monthly, Ortiz allegedly texted him photos of bones and skulls he found in the desert. According to Aguilar, he said he felt like he was back in Iraq, going to war every day. He suspected Ortiz was experiencing, quote, long repressed PTSD from his time in Iraq. Aguilar did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this podcast, and it's unclear if Ortiz's time in Border Patrol exacerbated his existing PTSD symptoms or created new ones. What's known is that in February 2018, eight years after he joined Border Patrol, Ortiz's anxiety, nightmares and drinking were bad enough that he sought treatment at the local VA and that doctors there felt confident he had ptsd. What's also clear is that Ortiz was not the only Border Patrol agent struggling with mental health issues during this time. It turns out that for the past decade, the U.S. border Patrol has had the highest suicide rate of any law enforcement agency in the country. A suicidologist the agency hired has identified some contributing factors like the stress of the migrant crisis and negative portrayals in the media. But a spokesman for the Border Patrol union said a major reason is that agents fear reporting mental health concerns. Those who do are forced to turn in their badges and service weapons. They're confined to desk duty and ineligible for overtime. The spokesman called the ensuing fit for duty process a quote, guillotine to your career. Ortiz seems to have felt the same pressure to hide his mental state from his employer. During his interrogation, he said he told a VA psychiatrist that he was feeling suicidal. According to Ortiz, the psychiatrist warned him to keep such feelings to himself, otherwise she'd be forced to tell Border Patrol. As Ortiz put it, they would reprimand my ass quickly. So Ortiz claimed he never mentioned suicide to his psychiatrist again, and his supervisors at the Border intel center remained in the dark. An attorney who defends border agents in civil cases told me Ortiz's predicament was not uncommon. He added, I've seen another dozen or so Ortiz's around the country who are just ticking time bombs.

[Jed Lipinski]

It only took 20 minutes for the grand jury to decide there was enough probable cause to indict Juan David Ortiz. The DA confirms they will be pursuing the death penalty.

[Joey Taez]

In December 2018, three months after the murders, a grand jury indicted Ortiz for capital murder. District Attorney Alaniz said he decided to pursue the death penalty because the killings had been carried out as part of a scheme.

[Alaniz]

It had a lot of characteristics of a hate crime, of targeting a certain segment of the population, and we felt that the elements were there for the Capitol. Murder for Death Penalty because of the.

[Joey Taez]

Capital murder charge, Ortiz received a new defense team certified to try death penalty cases. The trial was scheduled for the following year in San Antonio, but due to the pandemic, it was delayed until December 2022. But just months before the trial began, the prosecution changed course. The victims families, convinced that lethal injection was an easy way out, had persuaded the DA to pursue life in prison over the death penalty. Alaniz backed off the capital murder and hate crime charges and charged Ortiz with four counts of murder and one Count of aggravated assault. District Attorney Alaniz expected Ortiz's defense team to argue that PTSD and the medications prescribed by the VA had played a role in his crimes. Ortiz had said as much in his confession.

[Alaniz]

We had our experts ready to refute whatever they were going to bring forward, but we never got to that point because when the case was handed over to them, they decided not to present their expert testimony. In fact, all the medications he mentioned during the confession, the state didn't bring anyone.

[Joey Taez]

Alaniz thinks this was partly because Ortiz seemed to be acting just fine at work and at home during the period that he committed the murders.

[Alaniz]

We made an in depth analysis as to his performance at work, his duties at work, his interactions at work, all the while he was under medication and he performed at a high level, he was attending his kids functions at school. For all intents and purposes, the medication was helping him.

[Joey Taez]

Had the defense tried to argue that Ortiz was suffering from some kind of PTSD or medication induced psychosis? Alaniz said he would have pointed to Ortiz's wife and supervisor, who'd noticed no change in his personality before or after the murders. Instead, the defense argued that Ortiz's confession had been coerced. They also tried to discredit the key witness, Erica Pena, who'd admitted to using heroin the night of the attack. The prosecution responded by playing the entire nine hour interrogation video for the jury to prove that Ortiz, who had conducted interrogations himself, knew exactly what he was doing and had confessed voluntarily. Erica Pena, who was in recovery by then, bravely held up under cross examination and provided damning testimony. And there seemed to be no escaping the hard evidence. At one point, Alaniz called a firearms examiner who concluded that the spent cartridges at the crime scenes and the bullets taken from the victims had all been fired from Ortiz's gun. Alaniz had all the evidence a prosecutor could want, a detailed confession, an alleged murder weapon, and what prosecutors believed were matching ballistics. What he didn't have was a motive. Why did Ortiz commit these crimes?

[Alaniz]

First thing a lot of juries want to know is motive. Why does somebody do what they do?

[Joey Taez]

One obstacle to proving motive was that Ortiz was a trained intelligence officer. There were no witnesses to his crimes and prosecutors claimed he'd been very cautious about his phone.

[Alaniz]

We did not have any readable communications that he had with any of the victims. I'm talking about text messages, I'm talking about a digital trail. He was very careful about how he was making contact with these people. He'd physically go over there and I could never present him in a text message that said, hey, baby, what's up? Or am I going to see you tonight? We didn't have any of that.

[Joey Taez]

What prosecutors did have were GPS coordinates from Ortiz's phone at the time of the murders.

[Alaniz]

That tells a story in and of itself, and it matches up with the dates, the times, the locations that he was at.

[Joey Taez]

Ortiz, in his confession, had told investigators why he killed Melissa Ramirez. In short, he said he did it because she'd fallen asleep in his truck and then called him an asshole when she realized he'd driven them to the middle of nowhere. But Alaniz doubted Ortiz's story. He suspected there was more to it. He told the jury that Ortiz had begun seeing Melissa in early 2018 and that the two formed a close bond. But by that summer, Ortiz appeared to have dropped Melissa and started seeing her friend Erica instead. Alaniz wondered, did that irritate Melissa? Did Ortiz worry she might cause problems for him?

[Alaniz]

I don't know how this is affecting his personal life. The fact that he had already been taking Melissa to his home to have sex, whether she was going to go and knock at the door and introduce herself to his wife. Those are just theories, those are ideas. But these are human beings with feelings, with emotions, and he got in over his head.

[Joey Taez]

Alanis also believed there was more to Claudine Loera's murder than Ortiz let on after he killed Melissa. Ortiz may have thought no one would care about the death of a drug addicted sex worker. But from his perch inside the Border intel center, he soon realized investigators were taking her murder very seriously.

[Alaniz]

He's cooking for 10 days, and this investigation is picking up speed. They're bringing people in. Phone calls are being made. You know, Texas Rangers involved, sheriff's office, they're questioning people. They're all over town. He's in a pressure cooker, you know, so he's already a ticking time bomb, and then that call comes into the Border Intelligence Center.

[Joey Taez]

The call he's referring to is the one that investigators placed the day before Claudine's body was found, the one seeking information on Claudine after people on San Bernardo said she might have insight into who killed Melissa Ramirez. Alanis believed that Ortiz knew the cops were looking for Claudine in the same building.

[Alaniz]

Ortiz is there. He overhears that call, maybe asks his buddy, who are they looking for? Well, Claudine, Lora, who knows? But he hears that name, Claudine's dead the next day. Coincidence? I don't think so.

[Joey Taez]

The next person Ortiz picked up was Erica Pena Alaniz didn't think that was a coincidence either. In his confession, Ortiz admitted that Erica had seen him and Melissa outside a drug house the night Melissa was killed. In Alaniz's mind, Ortiz must have been afraid that Erica would ID him as the last person Melissa was with. Erica was the closest thing to an eyewitness, which gave Ortiz good reason to silence her. But there was another simpler reason that Alaniz thought Ortiz had targeted Erica. Investigators had discovered that before Ortiz found her on the street, he'd been searching for her online.

[Alaniz]

He was making Google searches through the jail records for Erica. She wasn't in custody, but he was able to find her the next day.

[Joey Taez]

Alaniz suspected Ortiz tried to kill Erica for the same reason he killed Claudine. Because either one of them could have tied Ortiz to Melissa. Finally, there was the question of Giselda and Janelle. Ortiz, of course, claimed he'd killed them out of a desire to clean up the streets, as if it were a public service. But Alanis saw things differently. When Erica escaped, he said Ortiz must have realized his life as he knew it was over. And he decided to take revenge on the community he felt was responsible for his downfall.

[Alaniz]

I think he resented this population, these people who maybe he blamed for the situation he was in. And he was losing it all when Erica escaped. And I think he wanted somebody to pay.

[Joey Taez]

Alaniz presented these theories to the jury, but he admitted that Ortiz's true motives remained hidden to everyone but him.

[Alaniz]

You know, what caused him to do this, we'll never know. It's a huge contrast to the type of individual that he appeared to be. But you know, there was obviously some demons in there that made him minimize the value of these victims lives. And he decided to play judge, jury and executioner.

[Jed Lipinski]

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[Joey Taez]

Sharing with family meals, couches, stories, Grandma's secret pecan pie recipe and now you.

[Jed Lipinski]

Can also share a cart. With Instacart's family carts, everyone can add what they want to one group cart from wherever they are so you don't have to go from room to room.

[Joey Taez]

To find out who wants cranberry sauce.

[Jed Lipinski]

Or who should get mini marshmallows for the yams or collecting votes for sugar cookies versus shortbread.

[Joey Taez]

Just share a cart and then share.

[Jed Lipinski]

The meals and the moments. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes plus enjoy free delivery on your first three orders.

[Joey Taez]

Service fees and terms apply the jury deliberated for five hours before finding Ortiz guilty of capital murder. A federal judge later sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Perhaps the most heart wrenching moment of the trial occurred on its last day when Giselda's brother Joey delivered his victim impact statement. Both of his parents had been murdered years earlier. His sister's death had left him with no living relatives. Wearing a T shirt printed with photographs of Melissa, Claudine, Janelle and Giselda, Cantu stared at Ortiz as he spoke.

[Joy Cantu]

My name is Joy Cantu. You started to come through with many things. 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 madness, 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 will always will be. She will always be the six year old little girl who would wake up in the middle of the night to walk her 8 year old brother to the restroom because I was scared of the dark.

[Joey Taez]

Cantu went on to mention that in her last moments, Giselda had tried to dissuade Ortiz from committing suicide.

[Joy Cantu]

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 in the face of that empathy and compassion, you responded by violently taking her life. It would be so easy to hate you. Too easy. But I've always abhorred the path of least resistance. And I don't hate you. And I want you to know that I forgive you. And I hold no ill will towards you, Ma. I pray that one day you find the peace that you have ripped away from all of us.

[Brandon Caro]

This was the site over at San Agustin Plaza. Last night, candles flickered over the memories of the four victims that Juan David Ortiz admitted to killing in a violent murder spree.

[Joey Taez]

Not long after the murders, La Gordi Loca arranged a vigil for the victims. It was held at a park outside San Agustin Cathedral in downtown Laredo. More than 200 mourners showed up holding candles and roses and childhood pictures of Melissa, Claudine, Giselda, and Janelle. A local pastor led them in prayer. There's no explanation for this, he told them. But what I do know is that there's a God that restores. Before the vigil, Claudine, Lora's sister Colette had worried that people in Laredo shared Ortiz's view that no one cared about the victims.

[Jed Lipinski]

Even hearing after what Ortiz said that he was cleaning up the streets of Laredo. You know, it hurts thinking like, okay, is that what everybody thinks of these people, that they're trash?

[Joey Taez]

But to see the community come together.

[Jed Lipinski]

And to honor these women was very heartwarming, because, I mean, they were somebody's mother, they were somebody's daughter, somebody's sister, somebody's niece. You know, they were someone to somebody. And just to see all the families come together and people that we didn't know come give their condolences, give us that warm embrace, letting us know that, you know what? We're not alone. We're not mourning alone. The community was mourning with us.

[Joey Taez]

Like almost everyone who knew Juan David Ortiz, I found it hard to square the good man he appeared to be with, the man who brutally killed four innocent women. Over the last year, we've spoken with dozens of people, including forensic psychologists and experts in ptsd. We've read thousands of pages of court documents. And yet the true motive behind the murders still feels out of reach. After his sentencing, I wrote Ortiz several letters requesting an interview, but he never responded. And I never got to ask him some of the questions I still have in closing. I thought I would read a few of them here. You told investigators that after killing Melissa Ramirez, you decided to clean up the streets of sex workers because you thought they were trash, but their memories of you suggest otherwise. Karen told us you offered to help her stop using heroin and to get her children back. Erica Pena described you as caring and generous and said you told her you loved her. How did you really feel about them? You also told Calderon and Salinas that the VA messed you up. But I recently learned that years earlier, when you were in middle school, your father took his own life with a.38 caliber pistol. A few years later, while you were still a teenager, you saw combat in Iraq, only to return home and join the Border Patrol and find yourself fighting another kind of war at the border. Is it possible you were messed up for other reasons? I've seen the photograph of you taken after you confessed to the murders. Not the one newspapers published where you're smirking at the camera in a striped prison jumpsuit. It's the photo that wasn't published, the one in which you're shirtless and crying. You seem to understand what you did and the amount of pain you caused in that moment. Did you also understand why you did it? If you have questions or information for the Gone south team, please email [e-mail] Gone south is written and narrated by me, Jed Lipinski, executive produced by Jed Lipinski, Tom Lipinski and Ken Lee. Our story editor is Tom Lipinski, directed by Lloyd Lockridge produced by Anna Worrell edited, mixed and mastered by Chris Basil. Original music by Marshall Chadbourne Production support from Ian Mott, Bill Schultz, Bob Tabador and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to JD Crowley, Jenna Weiss Berman, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Schuff. Gone south is an Odyssey original.

[Jed Lipinski]

You might think financial crime is all about money, but sometimes it ends in murder. I'm Nicole Lapin, host of Money Crimes, a crime House Original Podcast. Each episode features a thrilling story about the dark side of finance and how to protect yourself from it. Follow and listen to Money Crimes and Odyssey Podcast in partnership with crimehouse Studios. Available on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.