ABC 20/20’s November 17, 2023, episode focused on the case against Loredo serial killer Juan David Ortiz’s crimes around the border city. In 2018, Ortiz, a Border Patrol officer, picked up four women on Laredo’s streets and drove them to remote areas. There, he fatally shot them. A jury convicted him of capital murder in December 2022. Following this, he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The 20/20 episode, titled “The One That Got Out,” delves into the case and the murders Ortiz committed across 12 days. Previously, a Dateline NBC episode also covered the harrowing case in an episode titled “The Streets of Laredo.” It aired on the Network in September 2023.
Ex-border patrol agent and Laredo serial killer Juan David Ortiz’s case, explained
According to USA Today, Juan David Ortiz committed the Laredo killings between September 3 and September 15, 2018. Prosecutors alleged that he picked up the women, namely Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Luera, Guiselda Hernandez, and Janelle Ortiz, from Laredo’s San Bernardo Avenue. The area is populated with sex workers and drug pushers. He then drove them out to remote locations and shot them one by one. The border patrol officer used his government-issued .40-caliber handgun to commit the murders.
The publication reported that police arrested Ortiz, an Iraq war veteran, when he was about to commit a fifth murder. The to-be-victim, Erika Peña, reportedly narrowly escaped his pickup truck and alerted authorities. He committed the crimes across a span of 12 days and left the victims’ slumped on dirt roads or under overpasses. All four women were sex workers who struggled with drug addiction.
During his high-profile trial, Peña testified that Ortiz admitted to her about his fear that police might link him to Melissa Ramirez’s slaying using DNA evidence. The accused was Ramirez’s client for months, as per New York Times. The survivor then claimed that the disgraced officers had told her about picking up Ramirez days before she was found dead.
Ortiz then reportedly drove Peña to a nearby convenience store and drew a gun on her. The latter wriggled out of her blouse and fled the vehicle to a Texas Department of Public Safety state trooper at the station. “Some way, somehow, I took off running without a shirt,” said the survivor.
According to CBS News, officers, who arrested Ortiz the same night of Peña’s escape, knew about Ramirez and Luera’s murders. They learned of Cantu’s murders while chasing down the suspect and only learned of Janelle Ortiz’s murder after his confession. Webb County Medical Examiner Corinne Stern stated that the killer had fatally shot three of the four women – Ramirez, Luera, and Janelle Ortiz. Meanwhile, he shot Cantu in the neck, but she died of blunt force trauma to the head.
Following an eight-day trial, a jury found the 39-year-old ex-border patrol officer guilty of capital murder in the Laredo killings. Later, he received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. According to the Texas Department of Corrections, the convicted murderer is now serving his sentence at the W. F. Ramsey Unit.
