Suspect charged in 2016 cold case

A San Antonio man has been indicted on a murder charge in connection with the 2016 death of a Houston-area man who was found headless and handless, his body burned beyond recognition.

The case was among 73 felony indictments handed down last week by two Bexar County grand juries, the District Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Police in Kinney County arrested Jorge Alberto Rivera on April 2 when authorities found six undocumented immigrants in his vehicle. He was charged in a human smuggling case, but admitted while in custody that he was involved in the death of Javier Thomas Soto, 43, an affidavit supporting his arrest stated.

Soto was reported missing from the Houston area and was last seen on Aug. 20, 2016. The next day, his body was found in San Antonio, engulfed in flames inside a trash bin at the Marigold Apartments in the 2300 block of Goliad Road on the Southeast Side, police said. He had been decapitated, and his hands severed.

At the time, San Antonio police investigators released a photograph of a tattoo of Soto’s first name on his upper right arm, and also released surveillance footage captured from the area that showed someone dumping Soto’s body in the trash bin.

Following Soto’s identification by the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office, they ruled his cause and manner of death as “homicidal violence including sharp-force injury.” But the case then went cold for six years.

According to the affidavit, once in custody, Rivera, 39, described details of Soto’s death, how he was killed and the condition of his body to investigators, and also admitted he was the man seen in the surveillance video.

The document stated, without detailing it, that Rivera revealed a motive behind the killing.

Rivera’s case is being heard in the 226th District Court. If convicted of murder, he faces five to 99 years or life in prison.

In a separate case, the DA’s Office said grand jurors had declined to indict a San Antonio police officer who last year fatally shot a man going through what family members said was a mental health crisis.

A police report said officers responded to a 911 call about a man with a knife who had broken into a home in the 1300 block of Brighton Avenue on March 26, 2021. They encountered John Peña Montez, 57, who threatened to kill himself during an argument with his common-law wife and appeared intoxicated.

Officer Douglas Meynig twice attempted to use a stun gun on

Montez, but it had no effect, the report said. Montez was “lunging” at the officers when officer Stephen Ramos shot him several times, according to the document.

Montez’s widow and sister disputed that account and said the U.S. Army veteran suffered from depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. Ramos was placed on administrative duty and returned to full duty in September after an Internal Affairs investigation and a review panel found no administrative violations.

San Antonio police sent their findings to the DA’s Office, which presents all officer-involved shootings that result in death or serious injury to a grand jury, District Attorney Joe D. Gonzales noted in a statement released Friday.

“That’s what we have done here,” he said. “We have deferred to the judgment of the citizens of Bexar County. A memo detailing the facts of the case will be posted to the Civil Rights Division website soon.”

He declined further comment.

Ramos is currently under investigation and on administrative duty in connection with another fatal shooting, the June 3 death of Andre “AJ” Hernandez, 13.

The teen was driving a stolen Toyota Corolla the 5100 block of War Cloud Street when officers pulled up on both sides of the car. Authorities said the teen attempted to ram the driver’s door of one of the police vehicles, putting in danger an officer who was stepping out of the SUV. Ramos fired one shot, fatally wounding the teen in the abdomen.

The Hernandez family has hired an attorney and is seeking a murder charge against Ramos.

Rivera