From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Noel Is on an adventure they called me Ben. We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you hopefully. You are here, hopefully, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today's episode dives into a bit of true crime, right as it's so popularly called nowadays. You know, I was discussing this with my wife. I think that most conspiracies, at least at the heart are true crime stories. At least, uh there's some element of crime generally somewhere within them, cover up an attempted secrecy, right to conspire in the etymology of conspiracy and conspire to breathe together in secret. Yeah, Oh yeah, I mean, I think I think we do a to true crime show here. We have we have certainly we haven't been limited to true crime, but but I think there's some sand to it. A lot of the cases that we have found, or a lot of the phenomenon we have investigated can be traced back to um. When I say mundane, I don't want to sound like I'm diminishing it, but earthly mundane terrestrial crimes, greed, you know, anger lust, gluttony, all the hits, all the sins. So we should also say at the top, I am very excited about some stuff we have coming up. And I mentioned and believe off air about a very interesting story I found from folklore that also interacts or intertwines rather with true crime, and that that folklore stuff is going to get dark. So stay tuned for that in a few weeks. But for now today's episode, we are traveling through the power of the Mind to Texas, to South Texas, to a town called Laredo. And Laredo is going to be fascinating for anyone who is not familiar with the area and for anyone who's not from the States even And that's because borders, despite all the hubbub you hear in the news, borders historically have not been sharply demarcated things. Borders sort of slide into one another, right, and then the first borders were all terrestrial obstacle goals, impassable mountain ranges, you know, um, unfordable rivers or gigantic oceans or deserts where nothing could grow. Yeah, essentially everything on this side of whatever this unsurmountable thing is is one place and then on the other to the other. Yeah. Absolutely. But if you look at Laredo, Texas, uh, and then you look at Nuevo Laredo, which is immediately across the border, like, it looks like almost a city in two or a town in two. Yeah, it looks like a city with a river that bisects it exactly. So this is a great point because nowadays, increasingly borders are politically demarcated. Right. One of the one of the incredibly effective and entirely immoral, i would say evil strategies that European powers used to subjugate native peoples on the a Incontinent was the creation of political borders. So let us take a look. The European forces would say at the natural demarcations people have made four thousands of thousands of years, this community, or this tribe or or this nation lived here. Well, let's bisect it. So now they live in in three different areas and they can't gather as easily. It's um, it's a predecessor of gerrymandering, but a much more brutal one with the with the effect being, of course, the removal of power from the people. And this means that in terms of social impact, borders, whether they're based on an insurmountable obstacle or whether they're based on the political aims of the people drawing the maps, UH, they still have very very powerful effects on the people who live in the area. And the southern border between the United States of America and Mexico has been in the domestic and international news for some time now, for for a couple of years. Really, it was a campaign slogan from the Trump administration that launched this into um the zone of international media. And as we record this, UH, the sitting president issued a national emergency dealing with border security. Yes, that is correct, declared a national emergency when Congress rejected the executive branches uh initial request for money to build a wall, a physical barrier. Physical barriers already exist different points along the border, but this pitch was for the construction of a contiguous this barrier of some sort. What would that barrier be exactly? That sort of changes depending on the news cycle, you know. But when you hear about the southern border between the United States and Mexico. Nowadays, you're primarily going to hear about that ongoing debate. Should the US build or extend the existing physical barriers across the span of the border. If so, who should pay for this, you know? And what would be? What would the benefits, if any be, what would the consequences, if any be. You will hear widely varying and wildly varying ideas and takes on this. Whatever you tune into the news or whatever podcasts you listen to, Today's episode is not about that wall, not about that physical barrier, nor is it about the debate involved. But it is physically where we are. It is physically where we are right you see, Folks, there has been a ton of media coverage and there's been a ton of reporting about crime or the lack of crime along this very border. And today's story does concern crime, but perhaps not the way some of us might initially assume. So we said, we're in Laredo. Where's Laredo, Matt, What do you tell us about Laredo? What is this? What is this thing? Yes, it's in it's in southern Texas. It's the seat of Webb County there. It's uh, immediately on the Rio Grand. As we discussed, the Rio Grand separates it from New Laredo, which is on the Mexican side of the border, and it's about two KOs southwest of San Antonio. That's your biggest landmark of sorts or I guess city mark. Um, it's about yes, roughly, and it's you know, it's one of the most important, one of the principal ding border crossings that exist between Mexico and Texas, and specifically from to get from Mexico into Texas. And that's a legal border crossing. Correct, a legal borders, legal border crossing. Yes, oh man, it's so red, leather, yellow, right, yes, for all the theater kids in the audience today. Absolutely. Um. So let's talk about the human beings that are there. So as of seventeen, the population of Laredo was estimated to be about two hundred and sixty thousand, almost two hundred and sixty one tho. The population is roughly six percent Hispanic or Latino and this town, the city is ranked one of the least ethnically diverse cities in the entire country. And quick update, I dug into that a little bit more. It is the it is the one top of the least ethnically diverse, which is another way of saying the most homogeneous in terms of ethnicity uh area in the nation, which is which is pretty nuts because the United States has a lot of pockets of population, right, But often these will occur in areas where they're they're part of a city that is composed of other pockets, you know what I mean. Absolutely, that's I would say that very much describes Atlanta. Yeah, the city of pockets, sure, and Atlanta is more integrated than many other cities here in the modern day. But Laredo does have a population of more than as you said, Hispanic or Latino identifying people, and for some some people this would be indicative of the point we made earlier that borders tend to be gray gray areas, you know what I mean. Like often people on either side of a border will speak the same language and we'll have a lot of the same customs, you know what I mean. And the especially if it's a political border, it's dividing an area that already existed without the line marked through it, you know, and especially if that border is between two countries like the United States and Mexico that for century or at least decades, we've had trade deals where businesses in along that border are also going across that border constantly and all the time. Um. When you just think about the population that actually lives on one side or exists on one side for a large amount of their day, um, that that area becomes even grayer. Yeah. Yeah, And this is not solely a US Mexico phenomenon. You know, there are plenty of people who live in the US work in Canada, vice versa. I think about the EU, I was, Yeah, that's that's one of the primo examples for sure, because of the way that the EU travel and residency laws work. It's completely normal too, and also the proximity of the countries. It's completely normal to wake up in one country where you live and then go work in another one and man, I don't know, I don't know, maybe stop and see your your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your significant other in a third country just on the way home. Has done that, I think. I mean, that's the mission control life. We don't want to, we don't want to compromise that, but we can envy it so so with this idea of borders. Here in the US, we encounter concerns about crime, usually concerns about smuggling of one sort or another drugs people, uh, or we hear things about violent crime, robberies, gang activity, murder, assault. At least that's reported and then becomes a news a newsworthy story at least for a few hours. Right if it bleeds, it leads. And one of the concerns that often crops up when we talk about crime at any international border is going to be um the concern of how overblown or how ignored a phenomenon is. Is there a ton of crime that's being unreported? Is there a dearth of crime or a lack of crime with that's being overreported? You know, one murder occur and then that murder leads the news for four months. Those are Those are definitely I would say, the viewpoints from which a lot of times people form an opinion about crime at borders. Yeah, because realistically, most people don't have time to take a week off, drive down or fly down to the border and watch themselves. You know, you have to you have to find news sources or reporting sources that you can trust, or or even to take the time just to do some research from a computer. Like what we do on the show is sit down and you know, research and write about it. Nobody has time for that unless you're getting paid for it. That's not a bad point. It's it's tough but fair. It's tough but fair. So let's talk about crime in Laredo. From what we found. We went straight to the official government statistics, so past the pundit headlines and so on, and what we found is that over the past nine years or so, crime in Laredo has dropped significantly. It has not escalated. One of the pitches that you'll hear for the construction of of more physical barriers or a contiguous physical barrier is it's not designed to be a political argument. It's designed to be an argument about security. And the idea here is that a crime is increasing and that be uh some sort of physical barrier will help reduce or mitigate that increase. That's just the argument as it's laid out. A ton of people agree with it, ton of people disagree with it. That's the argument. It couldn't it couldn't be more polar It could not be more polar That's that's an excellent observation. However, the assumptions of that argument fall a little bit short in Laredo, because in this town, homicide cases dropped thirty from two thousand nine, to robbery decline and aggravated assault dropped. This is according to the Laredo Police Departments Annual Report. In so crime appears to, at least in several key areas, be going down in Laredo rather than escalating. But there's something else at play here. It's it's not just everybody pulling an R E M. Shiny happy people thing, you know, everybody just suddenly become friends. Most violent crime rates have dropped by double digits, but sexual offense cases have increased by forty eight percent during that same nine year span from two thousand nine. So other stuff dropped by a third, in some cases almost halved, but this stuff increased by almost fifty. Yeah. That's um, that's a tough statistic. I certainly wonder why, um, and we're not here to analyze that. But it is like, it's a terrible reality. It's a terrible reality. And of course you could make arguments saying that maybe there's something wonky and the way it's reported. Of course, we do know that in this country, as unfortunately is the case in many other countries, there are a lot of homicides that go on reported. Right in this case, we see that there's an anomalous spike. Everything else is going down. This thing is spiking. Let's look at murder, murder specifically, murderers dropped, but it's still occurring. And you can find some fairly robust murder statistics in Laredo on a website called city dash data dot com and it this compiles all of the murders, sexual assaults, robberies, burglaries are thefs, non car ffs, arson, and so on across the town, across Laredo and Nuevo Laredo as well. So let's let's think about who these murderers are, or who these criminals are. Should we give some name, like some numbers as to some of these dates. Oh yeah, yeah, just to just to have so everyone understands. So if we're looking we're looking at this table that goes from two thousand to until two thousand sixteen. The if we're just looking at murders, the lowest number you're going to find between those dates occurred in at least the reported ones, and there were only three murders that year. Then if let's see a max would be two thousand three, which is twenty nine murders in that year. So those numbers are fairly low. I mean, they seem very low. Um, we don't have a really good thing to like compare it to. But over you know, in a big city there are significantly more murders than that generally on average per year. Um, So I guess the big question is who are the people in Laredo and New Laredo who are killing other humans? Right? Right? Who are these murderers? Now, we wouldn't be wrong if we were listening to this and we just shrugged and said, well, you know, unfortunately, the usual gangs maybe jilted lovers in crimes of passion, or employees who are former employees rather maybe drug dealers, human traffickers, you know, criminals, sleeves bags, scum. There are always elements of these criminals in the mix. But Laredo, it turns out, may have birthed something else, something that is fortunately much less common, something that is in many ways more dangerous and definitely um, definitely more alien. Yes, what happened in Laredo that caused a man who's hired to protect the border but instead used that area as his personal hunting ground. We'll have the answer after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Juan David Ortiz was a veteran of the U. S. Navy. He was married with children, held a bachelor's degree from the American Military University and a master's degree from St. Mary's Academy in Texas. After leaving the Navy, or Tease finds work for the US Border Patrol and he spends ten years there functioning as an intelligence operator or an intelligence officer. As an intelligence officer, or Tease was well aware of Laredo's cd underbelly, the sex workers, the drug dealers, the drug addicts, the criminals, and the smugglers, everyone making a living on the wrong side of the law for one reason or another. And somewhere along the way he became a killer. So let's go to the night of September. There's an unidentified woman who was at the time, she was at least functioning as a sex worker UM on that night and she met up with a man that she knew of at least as David David and she was feeling uneasy about um deciding to, I guess, hang with David, or go on a date with David or whatever. And there were two other sex workers that she knew of that who at least that she was aware of, had been recently killed. And one of those people was her personal friend named Melissa, Melissa Ramirez. Now, this man named David, or at least that it's called David, and this unidentified woman had already spent some time at the man's house, and this is like I guess over time, they've been there for a little while, and she began to get increasingly creeped out by this man, and she was becoming frightened by some of his actions, he was taking some of his words, and especially when she mentioned her friend Melissa, who had recently been killed, he had reacted so strangely, in fact, she later told authorities, and the situation had grown so tense during the conversation that she vomited in the front yard of the house before they went back into the truck and left, ostensibly to go to a gas station. As this woman, who remains unidentified at the time of recording, later accounted to police, the thought of Melissa stayed on her mind. It's fair to say it haunted her, and she kept bringing up her dead friend in response. Suddenly, this man, this David, pulled out a gun and grabbed the woman by her shirt. Luckily, I think her fight or flight reflexes were already pretty amped up at this point. She manages to jump out of the vehicle, and her shirt rips from her body during the process. David screeches off. He flees the scene, and the woman finds a state trooper at a nearby gas station. She tells the trooper what happened, and then she is also able to tell law enforcement the location of this David's home. David, who would later be identified as Juan David Ortiz, hit out in a hotel parking lot after fleeing officers attempting to apprehend him. He was found and arrested at two thirty am. And here's the thing. David was arrested and shortly after he was arrested, he began spilling the beans, essentially just telling all and he was confessing two very specific things. And when he when he talked about his motivations of why he was doing what he was doing, which we're gonna get into here in a moment. But his at least stated motivation was that he wanted to quote clean up the city, and he said that he had in fact killed this unidentified woman's friend, Melissa. He he admitted that he did that on the third of September in that year, but that wasn't all. He also confessed that he had committed more than just that one murder. That's right, According to Webb County District Attorney is Cedar Alan is where Tease saw himself somewhat as a vigilante. Sex worker He said were the scum of the earth, and he wanted to clean the streets. He believed he was doing a service for the city by committing these murders. He argued that law enforcement was not doing enough to curb what to curb the sex trade he saw it, which is which acquires a new complication when we consider that circumstantial evidence indicates Ortiz wasn't just socially familiar with several of these workers. Several of these victims he had been sexually involved with at least one, and he did, you know, he did confess to these They were murdered in very similar ways. Furthermore, during his descriptions of the murders, and during his arrest and during his confession, he was described as cool, emotionless, almost robotic. But let's go back to that in a moment. First, maybe we should talk about who these victims are. We mentioned Melissa Ramirez, so in total, Ortiz is suspective killing for and one kidnapping that would that would be the unidentified woman. Then it's important to talk about the time frame here when you're talking about a serial killer or spree killer or you know, the differences that we've covered in several episodes over the course of the years here. Um, but all of the murders that at least David Ortiz is Juan David Ortiz is accused of or was accused of, they they happen from September three to two September of the same month. So uh, not much of a cooling down period there between these killings. Four killings in that time span. So let's go to the first victim that we've discussed a tiny bit, Melissa Ramirez. She was twenty nine years old when she died. She was killed on the third of September two thousand eighteen. She was taken to Jeffries Road in the area and she was shot in the head. And then on the thirteen of September, Claudine and Lura, forty two years old, was murdered. She was taken to US eighty three in Spur Road to fifty five on September and she was shot. She did reach the hospital. She died shortly after she reached the hospital as a result of the gunshot wounds. Essentially, she was shot and left for dead. And then we have Griselda Alicia Hernandez Conto. She was thirty five when she died and she was killed on the fifteenth of September. She was she was shot, but according to Corners, she died due to blunt forest trauma and so shot and then battered. And the last identified victim at this point is Umberto Janelle Enriquez Ortiz, twenty eight year old, killed on the same day as Griselda on fifteenth of September two eighteen, also through a shot to the head. This victim was a trans woman identified as such as far as authorities can tell at this time or as far as what's been made publicly available about these confessions, that didn't that didn't play into the factor. He was hunting and killing specifically people based on their occupation, so this leads us to ask what else is out there. It is not unreasonable to assume that Ortiz may have committed other murders, but it seems odd that he would not have confessed to these as well while admitting to the other four. There's also tricky thing that happens sometimes with serial murder confessions. We We've seen this in a couple of other earlier serial killer cases, which is, if law enforcement has a bunch of open or cold cases they want to resolve, they they say they like their monolithic Some departments have in the past offered a prisoner different perks, you know, better food, better housing, etcetera. If they will also cop to these other unsolved cases, it's a way to clear the books. It's incredibly unethical, probably uncommon, and probably uncommon. Thankfully so, It's happened before, so it's not crazy to assume that this could happen again, or even as happening now in a totally different, unrelated case. In the case of Ortiz, it seems that he did do it, quite possibly with his service weapon, and he confessed to every murder he did and so this leads us to two things. The first thing is was there a serial killer active on the US Mexico border. This has been the one of those rumors that's cropped up in years past, you know. Uh. In this case, yes, yes, there was operating for a very short amount of time as far as we know, just in September before he's thankfully apprehended. But some of us will call earlier episodes when we talked about the difference between a spree killer and a serial killer. Serial killers, as I think you pointed out earlier, met usually have some sort of cooling down period. It's called so whatever that specific m O is. They they commit a murder using that specific you know, ritualistic set of circumstances or approach, and then they stopped for anywhere from you know, days, two months, in some cases years, and then they rinse and repeat the same behavior. This guy had a increasingly short interval of cooling down right from the third or September to and then just two days to the fifteenth, and then twice on the fifteenth. So this could this was building. Oh yeah, you can. You can definitely see that. And again it thank goodness, he was caught when he was, because you can only imagine where that could have gone as it was, as it was ramping up like that. So the people working in law enforcement who apprehended and arrested him, um again all thanks to the quick thinking of this unidentified fifth person, and they have literally saved lives, have literally saved lives. So it would seem that although immense human tragedy and loss has occurred here, there is, if not a happy ending, something a little bit more satisfactory. Right, the we found the monster, the monster was stopped and again and again. I know legally we're required to say the alleged murderer because the guy has knocked on to court yet. Yeah, it's not being convicted of a crime yet. But he did confess. Yeah. Still, it's hard to argue with the confession, but we know that there are such things as course, confession is a very real thing. But it would be a massive surprise if it turned out that he was not, in fact the person who committed these murders. I would agree. However, there's not there's not a satisfactory ending to this. This is one wrinkle, right in a continuing story. Yeah, one David Ortiz, you know, is an extreme version of some of the violence and some of the patterns of behavior that have been noticed uh in border areas. Right, this is a chapter of a story, and it is not the first chapter. It is not the last. You see, Ortiz, it's not the only murderer who operate on the border. He wasn't even the only murderer who worked on the force on the border patrol. Yeah, and we'll get to that after a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Let's jump to a few months prior to when Je David Ortiz was arrested. Let's go to June of two thousand eighteen. In that month of last year, another border agent, Ronald Anthony Burgos of Ela, was indicted on two counts of capital murder for allegedly killing his twenty seven year old lover I guess at the time, and their twenty month year old son, Um and prosecutors are currently seeking the death penalty in his case, as well as ortiesus exactly. There are fewer details available here, partially because the judge presiding over this case issued a gag order at the defendant's request. This prevents all involved parties from discussing the case publicly. You can still if you're a journalist or an interested person involved in the case, you can still go to public hearings. Those aren't closed down. But a gag order means that prosecutors, the attorneys for the defense, witnesses, police and other officers of the court, the bailiff, the stenographer, etcetera. Uh, anyone wi ties the investigation cannot discuss, summarize, or comment on the case in any way. So this case is nascent, it's still developing, it has not yet completed its passage through the legal system. So that that's one example. But you will see other people arguing that the these two terrible and tragic examples are part of a bigger story. The Texas Observer recently wrote an article called the Border Patrol serial killer is part of a long troubled history that by journalist Gus Bova. And what we find is that now the Laredo sector of Border Patrol alone host around sevent hundred of the twenty thousand total Border Patrol agents. And according to this article, Ortiase was at least the fourth patrolman to be arrested this year. The other cases include Burgosavile. So we mentioned earlier, another another officer who allegedly sexually assaulted a woman after threatening or with deportation. Another agent who has not been identified nor arrested, shot and killed an unarmed twenty year old Guatemalan woman in May. And this has been dubbed a series of very tragic coincidences or you know, maybe a pattern of abuse within the law enforcement. But that's probably not it. It's just that's what it appears to be, maybe, right, And it goes back to the bad apple argument, because we're of course not People who work in law enforcement go outside every day and risk their lives, so we're not in any way casting aspersion on that. The question is more about accountability in in these cases, you know, and what's happening. From two thousand five to two thousand twelve, US Customs and Border Protection agents were arrested over two thousand times for misconduct things like not all murder, still things that were against law, drunk driving, domestic violence. Your job for and CPP customers and Border protection includes border patrol and customs agents, so it's a larger pool, right. Two thousand thirteen Government Commission report found that border patrol agencies regularly stepped in the paths of cars to justify firing at drivers, as well as shooting at people throwing rocks, including teenagers on the Mexican side of the border. M yeah, I remember hearing about a few of those occurrences in the in the news. That's rough. Um m hm No, There's already been widespread speculation that Ortiz might have other victims that have yet to be publicly identified or conclusively linked to him. And as we said before, it's weird. It's not impossible, but it's weird that he would readily confess to four murders a fifth kidnapping and somehow keep the other stuff out of the news. There's definitely more to this story. Um. We already noted that according to the US legal system, he's still innocent. He's been tried for crimes, but until he's convicted, you can't legally be called a confirmed serial killer. But we have to ask, is there more to this story? Are there murders occurring along the border that are being unreported? And if so, who are the victims? Who are the perpetrators? Right? And and how can we be how can we be sure that they're all being found like all of the victims are being even are even known to be missing. There's such potential on and on border for someone who may be a part of trafficking or either willingly or unwillingly that ends up just a victim and never found. It's it's pretty terrifying, right. These are tough questions. In many cases, unfortunately they may be unanswerable because people can fall through the cracks. You know, um, someone who is someone who is attempting to cross a border illegally, maybe petrayed, betrayed by the forces that said they would get them over safely, and their bodies might never be discovered or when discovered, not identified. And what we have for today's episode then is not a happy ending other than you know, a budding serial killer was a newly active serial killer was apprehended, thankfully, right, But this is a small snapshot into what may be a larger, uh systemic problem. And if it is a larger systemic problem, if it's not a case of a few bad apples or something like that, then what is the solution? Does a solution exist? We'd like to hear from you. You can let us know on in Stagraham, let us on Facebook, let us know on Twitter, Additionally, tell us about the tell us about the crimes in your neck of the woods, whether in the US or your home country, or just a crime you've heard of that you believe has been under reported. Tell us what happened and why you think it's not getting more coverage. Absolutely, please please write to us. Just give us your experience if you if you will, if you want to, because we would like to learn along with you, UM and and learn from your experience. UM. Just just before we kind of like do the full wrap up here, I just want to point out something that the Texas Observer pointed out, UM, and that is the number of staff working on border patrol, like officially at least, and how it's increased from like in the past nineteen years or I guess they have statistics for the past seventeen years as of two years ago. That makes sense, so two thousand to two thousand seventeen, and just showing that it was around nine thousand, two hundred people officially staffing the United States border in the year two thousand, UM, and that grew all the way up to seventeen thousand, five hundred roughly in two thousand eight. Over the course of eight years, so it doubled almost then uh, the next year two thousand nine, it jumped up to the twenty thousand range, and it's kind of stayed between let's say, nineteen thousand and twenty one fifty UM over the course from two thousand two seventeen. Just to show that you're that's a lot of people if you think about a couple of thousand human beings that you're vetting and bringing in to be police officers essentially in border patrol agents, and the Texas Observer just makes the point that it's that kind of growth over that amount of time seems to be too rapid in order to fully vet all of the humans that you're hiring. Yea, So maybe there just needs to be a more in depth that aim process. Who knows, And that's one of the arguments you'll probably here and you may have heard that one UM. But again, sometimes you just can't catch that anomaly because it's operating essentially right in front of your eyes and you just don't realize it right or in the case of UM, the kind of festering mental condition they could lead someone to become an active serial killer. It may be rotting away internally, you know, what I mean. Yeah, exactly all right, So right to us or call us you. If you call us, you can leave a message and it might get on the show and we would love to hear your your stories and then respond to them in an episode in the future. So call us. We are one eight three three st d w I t K. That's just an acronym for stuff they don't want you to know, and uh do that. If you don't want to do that, send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt Noel Is on an adventure they called me Ben. We are joined with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you hopefully. You are here, hopefully, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. Today's episode dives into a bit of true crime, right as it's so popularly called nowadays. You know, I was discussing this with my wife. I think that most conspiracies, at least at the heart are true crime stories. At least, uh there's some element of crime generally somewhere within them, cover up an attempted secrecy, right to conspire in the etymology of conspiracy and conspire to breathe together in secret. Yeah, Oh yeah, I mean, I think I think we do a to true crime show here. We have we have certainly we haven't been limited to true crime, but but I think there's some sand to it. A lot of the cases that we have found, or a lot of the phenomenon we have investigated can be traced back to um. When I say mundane, I don't want to sound like I'm diminishing it, but earthly mundane terrestrial crimes, greed, you know, anger lust, gluttony, all the hits, all the sins. So we should also say at the top, I am very excited about some stuff we have coming up. And I mentioned and believe off air about a very interesting story I found from folklore that also interacts or intertwines rather with true crime, and that that folklore stuff is going to get dark. So stay tuned for that in a few weeks. But for now today's episode, we are traveling through the power of the Mind to Texas, to South Texas, to a town called Laredo. And Laredo is going to be fascinating for anyone who is not familiar with the area and for anyone who's not from the States even And that's because borders, despite all the hubbub you hear in the news, borders historically have not been sharply demarcated things. Borders sort of slide into one another, right, and then the first borders were all terrestrial obstacle goals, impassable mountain ranges, you know, um, unfordable rivers or gigantic oceans or deserts where nothing could grow. Yeah, essentially everything on this side of whatever this unsurmountable thing is is one place and then on the other to the other. Yeah. Absolutely. But if you look at Laredo, Texas, uh, and then you look at Nuevo Laredo, which is immediately across the border, like, it looks like almost a city in two or a town in two. Yeah, it looks like a city with a river that bisects it exactly. So this is a great point because nowadays, increasingly borders are politically demarcated. Right. One of the one of the incredibly effective and entirely immoral, i would say evil strategies that European powers used to subjugate native peoples on the a Incontinent was the creation of political borders. So let us take a look. The European forces would say at the natural demarcations people have made four thousands of thousands of years, this community, or this tribe or or this nation lived here. Well, let's bisect it. So now they live in in three different areas and they can't gather as easily. It's um, it's a predecessor of gerrymandering, but a much more brutal one with the with the effect being, of course, the removal of power from the people. And this means that in terms of social impact, borders, whether they're based on an insurmountable obstacle or whether they're based on the political aims of the people drawing the maps, UH, they still have very very powerful effects on the people who live in the area. And the southern border between the United States of America and Mexico has been in the domestic and international news for some time now, for for a couple of years. Really, it was a campaign slogan from the Trump administration that launched this into um the zone of international media. And as we record this, UH, the sitting president issued a national emergency dealing with border security. Yes, that is correct, declared a national emergency when Congress rejected the executive branches uh initial request for money to build a wall, a physical barrier. Physical barriers already exist different points along the border, but this pitch was for the construction of a contiguous this barrier of some sort. What would that barrier be exactly? That sort of changes depending on the news cycle, you know. But when you hear about the southern border between the United States and Mexico. Nowadays, you're primarily going to hear about that ongoing debate. Should the US build or extend the existing physical barriers across the span of the border. If so, who should pay for this, you know? And what would be? What would the benefits, if any be, what would the consequences, if any be. You will hear widely varying and wildly varying ideas and takes on this. Whatever you tune into the news or whatever podcasts you listen to, Today's episode is not about that wall, not about that physical barrier, nor is it about the debate involved. But it is physically where we are. It is physically where we are right you see, Folks, there has been a ton of media coverage and there's been a ton of reporting about crime or the lack of crime along this very border. And today's story does concern crime, but perhaps not the way some of us might initially assume. So we said, we're in Laredo. Where's Laredo, Matt, What do you tell us about Laredo? What is this? What is this thing? Yes, it's in it's in southern Texas. It's the seat of Webb County there. It's uh, immediately on the Rio Grand. As we discussed, the Rio Grand separates it from New Laredo, which is on the Mexican side of the border, and it's about two KOs southwest of San Antonio. That's your biggest landmark of sorts or I guess city mark. Um, it's about yes, roughly, and it's you know, it's one of the most important, one of the principal ding border crossings that exist between Mexico and Texas, and specifically from to get from Mexico into Texas. And that's a legal border crossing. Correct, a legal borders, legal border crossing. Yes, oh man, it's so red, leather, yellow, right, yes, for all the theater kids in the audience today. Absolutely. Um. So let's talk about the human beings that are there. So as of seventeen, the population of Laredo was estimated to be about two hundred and sixty thousand, almost two hundred and sixty one tho. The population is roughly six percent Hispanic or Latino and this town, the city is ranked one of the least ethnically diverse cities in the entire country. And quick update, I dug into that a little bit more. It is the it is the one top of the least ethnically diverse, which is another way of saying the most homogeneous in terms of ethnicity uh area in the nation, which is which is pretty nuts because the United States has a lot of pockets of population, right, But often these will occur in areas where they're they're part of a city that is composed of other pockets, you know what I mean. Absolutely, that's I would say that very much describes Atlanta. Yeah, the city of pockets, sure, and Atlanta is more integrated than many other cities here in the modern day. But Laredo does have a population of more than as you said, Hispanic or Latino identifying people, and for some some people this would be indicative of the point we made earlier that borders tend to be gray gray areas, you know what I mean. Like often people on either side of a border will speak the same language and we'll have a lot of the same customs, you know what I mean. And the especially if it's a political border, it's dividing an area that already existed without the line marked through it, you know, and especially if that border is between two countries like the United States and Mexico that for century or at least decades, we've had trade deals where businesses in along that border are also going across that border constantly and all the time. Um. When you just think about the population that actually lives on one side or exists on one side for a large amount of their day, um, that that area becomes even grayer. Yeah. Yeah, And this is not solely a US Mexico phenomenon. You know, there are plenty of people who live in the US work in Canada, vice versa. I think about the EU, I was, Yeah, that's that's one of the primo examples for sure, because of the way that the EU travel and residency laws work. It's completely normal too, and also the proximity of the countries. It's completely normal to wake up in one country where you live and then go work in another one and man, I don't know, I don't know, maybe stop and see your your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your significant other in a third country just on the way home. Has done that, I think. I mean, that's the mission control life. We don't want to, we don't want to compromise that, but we can envy it so so with this idea of borders. Here in the US, we encounter concerns about crime, usually concerns about smuggling of one sort or another drugs people, uh, or we hear things about violent crime, robberies, gang activity, murder, assault. At least that's reported and then becomes a news a newsworthy story at least for a few hours. Right if it bleeds, it leads. And one of the concerns that often crops up when we talk about crime at any international border is going to be um the concern of how overblown or how ignored a phenomenon is. Is there a ton of crime that's being unreported? Is there a dearth of crime or a lack of crime with that's being overreported? You know, one murder occur and then that murder leads the news for four months. Those are Those are definitely I would say, the viewpoints from which a lot of times people form an opinion about crime at borders. Yeah, because realistically, most people don't have time to take a week off, drive down or fly down to the border and watch themselves. You know, you have to you have to find news sources or reporting sources that you can trust, or or even to take the time just to do some research from a computer. Like what we do on the show is sit down and you know, research and write about it. Nobody has time for that unless you're getting paid for it. That's not a bad point. It's it's tough but fair. It's tough but fair. So let's talk about crime in Laredo. From what we found. We went straight to the official government statistics, so past the pundit headlines and so on, and what we found is that over the past nine years or so, crime in Laredo has dropped significantly. It has not escalated. One of the pitches that you'll hear for the construction of of more physical barriers or a contiguous physical barrier is it's not designed to be a political argument. It's designed to be an argument about security. And the idea here is that a crime is increasing and that be uh some sort of physical barrier will help reduce or mitigate that increase. That's just the argument as it's laid out. A ton of people agree with it, ton of people disagree with it. That's the argument. It couldn't it couldn't be more polar It could not be more polar That's that's an excellent observation. However, the assumptions of that argument fall a little bit short in Laredo, because in this town, homicide cases dropped thirty from two thousand nine, to robbery decline and aggravated assault dropped. This is according to the Laredo Police Departments Annual Report. In so crime appears to, at least in several key areas, be going down in Laredo rather than escalating. But there's something else at play here. It's it's not just everybody pulling an R E M. Shiny happy people thing, you know, everybody just suddenly become friends. Most violent crime rates have dropped by double digits, but sexual offense cases have increased by forty eight percent during that same nine year span from two thousand nine. So other stuff dropped by a third, in some cases almost halved, but this stuff increased by almost fifty. Yeah. That's um, that's a tough statistic. I certainly wonder why, um, and we're not here to analyze that. But it is like, it's a terrible reality. It's a terrible reality. And of course you could make arguments saying that maybe there's something wonky and the way it's reported. Of course, we do know that in this country, as unfortunately is the case in many other countries, there are a lot of homicides that go on reported. Right in this case, we see that there's an anomalous spike. Everything else is going down. This thing is spiking. Let's look at murder, murder specifically, murderers dropped, but it's still occurring. And you can find some fairly robust murder statistics in Laredo on a website called city dash data dot com and it this compiles all of the murders, sexual assaults, robberies, burglaries are thefs, non car ffs, arson, and so on across the town, across Laredo and Nuevo Laredo as well. So let's let's think about who these murderers are, or who these criminals are. Should we give some name, like some numbers as to some of these dates. Oh yeah, yeah, just to just to have so everyone understands. So if we're looking we're looking at this table that goes from two thousand to until two thousand sixteen. The if we're just looking at murders, the lowest number you're going to find between those dates occurred in at least the reported ones, and there were only three murders that year. Then if let's see a max would be two thousand three, which is twenty nine murders in that year. So those numbers are fairly low. I mean, they seem very low. Um, we don't have a really good thing to like compare it to. But over you know, in a big city there are significantly more murders than that generally on average per year. Um, So I guess the big question is who are the people in Laredo and New Laredo who are killing other humans? Right? Right? Who are these murderers? Now, we wouldn't be wrong if we were listening to this and we just shrugged and said, well, you know, unfortunately, the usual gangs maybe jilted lovers in crimes of passion, or employees who are former employees rather maybe drug dealers, human traffickers, you know, criminals, sleeves bags, scum. There are always elements of these criminals in the mix. But Laredo, it turns out, may have birthed something else, something that is fortunately much less common, something that is in many ways more dangerous and definitely um, definitely more alien. Yes, what happened in Laredo that caused a man who's hired to protect the border but instead used that area as his personal hunting ground. We'll have the answer after a word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Juan David Ortiz was a veteran of the U. S. Navy. He was married with children, held a bachelor's degree from the American Military University and a master's degree from St. Mary's Academy in Texas. After leaving the Navy, or Tease finds work for the US Border Patrol and he spends ten years there functioning as an intelligence operator or an intelligence officer. As an intelligence officer, or Tease was well aware of Laredo's cd underbelly, the sex workers, the drug dealers, the drug addicts, the criminals, and the smugglers, everyone making a living on the wrong side of the law for one reason or another. And somewhere along the way he became a killer. So let's go to the night of September. There's an unidentified woman who was at the time, she was at least functioning as a sex worker UM on that night and she met up with a man that she knew of at least as David David and she was feeling uneasy about um deciding to, I guess, hang with David, or go on a date with David or whatever. And there were two other sex workers that she knew of that who at least that she was aware of, had been recently killed. And one of those people was her personal friend named Melissa, Melissa Ramirez. Now, this man named David, or at least that it's called David, and this unidentified woman had already spent some time at the man's house, and this is like I guess over time, they've been there for a little while, and she began to get increasingly creeped out by this man, and she was becoming frightened by some of his actions, he was taking some of his words, and especially when she mentioned her friend Melissa, who had recently been killed, he had reacted so strangely, in fact, she later told authorities, and the situation had grown so tense during the conversation that she vomited in the front yard of the house before they went back into the truck and left, ostensibly to go to a gas station. As this woman, who remains unidentified at the time of recording, later accounted to police, the thought of Melissa stayed on her mind. It's fair to say it haunted her, and she kept bringing up her dead friend in response. Suddenly, this man, this David, pulled out a gun and grabbed the woman by her shirt. Luckily, I think her fight or flight reflexes were already pretty amped up at this point. She manages to jump out of the vehicle, and her shirt rips from her body during the process. David screeches off. He flees the scene, and the woman finds a state trooper at a nearby gas station. She tells the trooper what happened, and then she is also able to tell law enforcement the location of this David's home. David, who would later be identified as Juan David Ortiz, hit out in a hotel parking lot after fleeing officers attempting to apprehend him. He was found and arrested at two thirty am. And here's the thing. David was arrested and shortly after he was arrested, he began spilling the beans, essentially just telling all and he was confessing two very specific things. And when he when he talked about his motivations of why he was doing what he was doing, which we're gonna get into here in a moment. But his at least stated motivation was that he wanted to quote clean up the city, and he said that he had in fact killed this unidentified woman's friend, Melissa. He he admitted that he did that on the third of September in that year, but that wasn't all. He also confessed that he had committed more than just that one murder. That's right, According to Webb County District Attorney is Cedar Alan is where Tease saw himself somewhat as a vigilante. Sex worker He said were the scum of the earth, and he wanted to clean the streets. He believed he was doing a service for the city by committing these murders. He argued that law enforcement was not doing enough to curb what to curb the sex trade he saw it, which is which acquires a new complication when we consider that circumstantial evidence indicates Ortiz wasn't just socially familiar with several of these workers. Several of these victims he had been sexually involved with at least one, and he did, you know, he did confess to these They were murdered in very similar ways. Furthermore, during his descriptions of the murders, and during his arrest and during his confession, he was described as cool, emotionless, almost robotic. But let's go back to that in a moment. First, maybe we should talk about who these victims are. We mentioned Melissa Ramirez, so in total, Ortiz is suspective killing for and one kidnapping that would that would be the unidentified woman. Then it's important to talk about the time frame here when you're talking about a serial killer or spree killer or you know, the differences that we've covered in several episodes over the course of the years here. Um, but all of the murders that at least David Ortiz is Juan David Ortiz is accused of or was accused of, they they happen from September three to two September of the same month. So uh, not much of a cooling down period there between these killings. Four killings in that time span. So let's go to the first victim that we've discussed a tiny bit, Melissa Ramirez. She was twenty nine years old when she died. She was killed on the third of September two thousand eighteen. She was taken to Jeffries Road in the area and she was shot in the head. And then on the thirteen of September, Claudine and Lura, forty two years old, was murdered. She was taken to US eighty three in Spur Road to fifty five on September and she was shot. She did reach the hospital. She died shortly after she reached the hospital as a result of the gunshot wounds. Essentially, she was shot and left for dead. And then we have Griselda Alicia Hernandez Conto. She was thirty five when she died and she was killed on the fifteenth of September. She was she was shot, but according to Corners, she died due to blunt forest trauma and so shot and then battered. And the last identified victim at this point is Umberto Janelle Enriquez Ortiz, twenty eight year old, killed on the same day as Griselda on fifteenth of September two eighteen, also through a shot to the head. This victim was a trans woman identified as such as far as authorities can tell at this time or as far as what's been made publicly available about these confessions, that didn't that didn't play into the factor. He was hunting and killing specifically people based on their occupation, so this leads us to ask what else is out there. It is not unreasonable to assume that Ortiz may have committed other murders, but it seems odd that he would not have confessed to these as well while admitting to the other four. There's also tricky thing that happens sometimes with serial murder confessions. We We've seen this in a couple of other earlier serial killer cases, which is, if law enforcement has a bunch of open or cold cases they want to resolve, they they say they like their monolithic Some departments have in the past offered a prisoner different perks, you know, better food, better housing, etcetera. If they will also cop to these other unsolved cases, it's a way to clear the books. It's incredibly unethical, probably uncommon, and probably uncommon. Thankfully so, It's happened before, so it's not crazy to assume that this could happen again, or even as happening now in a totally different, unrelated case. In the case of Ortiz, it seems that he did do it, quite possibly with his service weapon, and he confessed to every murder he did and so this leads us to two things. The first thing is was there a serial killer active on the US Mexico border. This has been the one of those rumors that's cropped up in years past, you know. Uh. In this case, yes, yes, there was operating for a very short amount of time as far as we know, just in September before he's thankfully apprehended. But some of us will call earlier episodes when we talked about the difference between a spree killer and a serial killer. Serial killers, as I think you pointed out earlier, met usually have some sort of cooling down period. It's called so whatever that specific m O is. They they commit a murder using that specific you know, ritualistic set of circumstances or approach, and then they stopped for anywhere from you know, days, two months, in some cases years, and then they rinse and repeat the same behavior. This guy had a increasingly short interval of cooling down right from the third or September to and then just two days to the fifteenth, and then twice on the fifteenth. So this could this was building. Oh yeah, you can. You can definitely see that. And again it thank goodness, he was caught when he was, because you can only imagine where that could have gone as it was, as it was ramping up like that. So the people working in law enforcement who apprehended and arrested him, um again all thanks to the quick thinking of this unidentified fifth person, and they have literally saved lives, have literally saved lives. So it would seem that although immense human tragedy and loss has occurred here, there is, if not a happy ending, something a little bit more satisfactory. Right, the we found the monster, the monster was stopped and again and again. I know legally we're required to say the alleged murderer because the guy has knocked on to court yet. Yeah, it's not being convicted of a crime yet. But he did confess. Yeah. Still, it's hard to argue with the confession, but we know that there are such things as course, confession is a very real thing. But it would be a massive surprise if it turned out that he was not, in fact the person who committed these murders. I would agree. However, there's not there's not a satisfactory ending to this. This is one wrinkle, right in a continuing story. Yeah, one David Ortiz, you know, is an extreme version of some of the violence and some of the patterns of behavior that have been noticed uh in border areas. Right, this is a chapter of a story, and it is not the first chapter. It is not the last. You see, Ortiz, it's not the only murderer who operate on the border. He wasn't even the only murderer who worked on the force on the border patrol. Yeah, and we'll get to that after a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Let's jump to a few months prior to when Je David Ortiz was arrested. Let's go to June of two thousand eighteen. In that month of last year, another border agent, Ronald Anthony Burgos of Ela, was indicted on two counts of capital murder for allegedly killing his twenty seven year old lover I guess at the time, and their twenty month year old son, Um and prosecutors are currently seeking the death penalty in his case, as well as ortiesus exactly. There are fewer details available here, partially because the judge presiding over this case issued a gag order at the defendant's request. This prevents all involved parties from discussing the case publicly. You can still if you're a journalist or an interested person involved in the case, you can still go to public hearings. Those aren't closed down. But a gag order means that prosecutors, the attorneys for the defense, witnesses, police and other officers of the court, the bailiff, the stenographer, etcetera. Uh, anyone wi ties the investigation cannot discuss, summarize, or comment on the case in any way. So this case is nascent, it's still developing, it has not yet completed its passage through the legal system. So that that's one example. But you will see other people arguing that the these two terrible and tragic examples are part of a bigger story. The Texas Observer recently wrote an article called the Border Patrol serial killer is part of a long troubled history that by journalist Gus Bova. And what we find is that now the Laredo sector of Border Patrol alone host around sevent hundred of the twenty thousand total Border Patrol agents. And according to this article, Ortiase was at least the fourth patrolman to be arrested this year. The other cases include Burgosavile. So we mentioned earlier, another another officer who allegedly sexually assaulted a woman after threatening or with deportation. Another agent who has not been identified nor arrested, shot and killed an unarmed twenty year old Guatemalan woman in May. And this has been dubbed a series of very tragic coincidences or you know, maybe a pattern of abuse within the law enforcement. But that's probably not it. It's just that's what it appears to be, maybe, right, And it goes back to the bad apple argument, because we're of course not People who work in law enforcement go outside every day and risk their lives, so we're not in any way casting aspersion on that. The question is more about accountability in in these cases, you know, and what's happening. From two thousand five to two thousand twelve, US Customs and Border Protection agents were arrested over two thousand times for misconduct things like not all murder, still things that were against law, drunk driving, domestic violence. Your job for and CPP customers and Border protection includes border patrol and customs agents, so it's a larger pool, right. Two thousand thirteen Government Commission report found that border patrol agencies regularly stepped in the paths of cars to justify firing at drivers, as well as shooting at people throwing rocks, including teenagers on the Mexican side of the border. M yeah, I remember hearing about a few of those occurrences in the in the news. That's rough. Um m hm No, There's already been widespread speculation that Ortiz might have other victims that have yet to be publicly identified or conclusively linked to him. And as we said before, it's weird. It's not impossible, but it's weird that he would readily confess to four murders a fifth kidnapping and somehow keep the other stuff out of the news. There's definitely more to this story. Um. We already noted that according to the US legal system, he's still innocent. He's been tried for crimes, but until he's convicted, you can't legally be called a confirmed serial killer. But we have to ask, is there more to this story? Are there murders occurring along the border that are being unreported? And if so, who are the victims? Who are the perpetrators? Right? And and how can we be how can we be sure that they're all being found like all of the victims are being even are even known to be missing. There's such potential on and on border for someone who may be a part of trafficking or either willingly or unwillingly that ends up just a victim and never found. It's it's pretty terrifying, right. These are tough questions. In many cases, unfortunately they may be unanswerable because people can fall through the cracks. You know, um, someone who is someone who is attempting to cross a border illegally, maybe petrayed, betrayed by the forces that said they would get them over safely, and their bodies might never be discovered or when discovered, not identified. And what we have for today's episode then is not a happy ending other than you know, a budding serial killer was a newly active serial killer was apprehended, thankfully, right, But this is a small snapshot into what may be a larger, uh systemic problem. And if it is a larger systemic problem, if it's not a case of a few bad apples or something like that, then what is the solution? Does a solution exist? We'd like to hear from you. You can let us know on in Stagraham, let us on Facebook, let us know on Twitter, Additionally, tell us about the tell us about the crimes in your neck of the woods, whether in the US or your home country, or just a crime you've heard of that you believe has been under reported. Tell us what happened and why you think it's not getting more coverage. Absolutely, please please write to us. Just give us your experience if you if you will, if you want to, because we would like to learn along with you, UM and and learn from your experience. UM. Just just before we kind of like do the full wrap up here, I just want to point out something that the Texas Observer pointed out, UM, and that is the number of staff working on border patrol, like officially at least, and how it's increased from like in the past nineteen years or I guess they have statistics for the past seventeen years as of two years ago. That makes sense, so two thousand to two thousand seventeen, and just showing that it was around nine thousand, two hundred people officially staffing the United States border in the year two thousand, UM, and that grew all the way up to seventeen thousand, five hundred roughly in two thousand eight. Over the course of eight years, so it doubled almost then uh, the next year two thousand nine, it jumped up to the twenty thousand range, and it's kind of stayed between let's say, nineteen thousand and twenty one fifty UM over the course from two thousand two seventeen. Just to show that you're that's a lot of people if you think about a couple of thousand human beings that you're vetting and bringing in to be police officers essentially in border patrol agents, and the Texas Observer just makes the point that it's that kind of growth over that amount of time seems to be too rapid in order to fully vet all of the humans that you're hiring. Yea, So maybe there just needs to be a more in depth that aim process. Who knows, And that's one of the arguments you'll probably here and you may have heard that one UM. But again, sometimes you just can't catch that anomaly because it's operating essentially right in front of your eyes and you just don't realize it right or in the case of UM, the kind of festering mental condition they could lead someone to become an active serial killer. It may be rotting away internally, you know, what I mean. Yeah, exactly all right, So right to us or call us you. If you call us, you can leave a message and it might get on the show and we would love to hear your your stories and then respond to them in an episode in the future. So call us. We are one eight three three st d w I t K. That's just an acronym for stuff they don't want you to know, and uh do that. If you don't want to do that, send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.