Who is Juan David Ortiz? Border Patrol Agent Convicted of killing 4 Sex Workers Was Undone by His Own Words

Juan David Ortiz, a former supervisor of the border patrol, was found guilty of capital murder on Wednesday by a jury in South Texas. He was charged with killing four women in the fall of 2018 and disposing of their remains in the desert. For the murders, in which he is alleged to have picked up sex workers, shot them in the back of the head, and then dumped their bodies outside Laredo, Texas, close to the U.S.-Mexico border, Ortiz is now likely to spend the rest of his life in prison. She testified during the two-week trial that Ortiz, a Navy veteran, was identified as the suspected serial killer after a potential fifth victim narrowly avoided his hands. As their companions started to vanish one-by-one over the course of 12 days in September 2018, a group of sex workers who frequent San Bernardo Avenue, a notorious red-light district in Laredo, were afraid, according to Erika Pea. Pea claimed that despite her concerns, she didn't think twice about getting into Ortiz's white pickup truck on the evening of September 14. She claimed she trusted Ortiz to take her to his empty home because she had known him for five months, was aware he had a wife and children, and was a member of the police. Pea testified that the encounter began with friendly small talk but quickly descended into chaos after Pea brought up Melissa Ramirez's murder, a friend and fellow sex worker who had been killed earlier in the week.

“David was not himself anymore,” she testified. “I was scared…It made me think that he was the one who might have been murdering.”

Pea stated that when Ortiz's demeanor deteriorated, she begged him to drive her to a public area so she could obtain some food. Pea testified that Ortiz took her to a neighboring gas station and parked in the back. Then suddenly, she claimed, he grabbed her blouse while simultaneously pointing a gun at her. Pea admitted that while she can't recall exactly how she managed to escape, she does recall unlocking the door and running away as her top was being torn off. According to her, she fled topless until she came upon a Texas state trooper who was nearby pumping gas. “Someway, somehow, I took off running without a shirt,” she said. “Everything happened so fast.” The first significant lead in the local police's inquiry came from Pea's account. Ortiz was immediately sought after, and hours later he was found in a motel parking lot after a manhunt that was caught on body cameras and shown to the jury. The events that followed were crucial to Ortiz's case. During a nine-hour interrogation by Laredo police that was videotaped, Ortiz confessed to the crime, provided a possible motive, and identified a fourth victim whose body had not yet been found.

“I wanted to clean up the streets,” Ortiz told the police. “These people… are dirt, and I was going to get rid of them. Law enforcement doesn’t do anything about them? I will. I’m sick of them.”

The confession, along with Pea's evidence, according to the prosecution, proved Ortiz's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Joel Perez, Ortiz's defense attorney, countered that his 38-year-old client had just repeated material he had read in newspapers to terminate the "coerced" interrogation. In addition, Perez stated that Ortiz had post-traumatic stress disorder and was "broken" and "suicidal" at the time of his confession. This, according to Perez, indicated that Ortiz was not mentally fit to speak with police. In response to Pea's evidence, Perez asserted that the 31-year-old had made a mistaken identification of Ortiz because she had been coerced. Each day of Ortiz's trial was attended by relatives of the four murdered victims, Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Alicia Cantu, and Janelle Orti, according to KSAT12.

On Wednesday, the same day jury deliberations started, those family members wore shirts that had pictures of each victim, with “they are loved” emblazoned across the front.