Jury hears phone calls between Ex-border Patrol agent and wife
Juan David Ortiz and his wife spoke of God, eternity, Casey Anthony and “hoping for a miracle” in jailhouse phone conversations in which the ex-border Patrol supervisor expressed concern about a confession he made to authorities.
The phone calls between Ortiz and his wife, Daniella, were played Tuesday outside the presence of the jury shortly before prosecutors rested their case in his capital murder trial in
San Antonio.
“There’s no evidence, except for the confession,” Ortiz is heard telling his wife in one call.
Ortiz, 39, is accused of killing Melissa Ramirez, 29, on Sept. 3, 2018; Claudine Anne Luera, 42, the following Sept. 13, and two victims on Sept. 15 hours before his arrest: Guiselda Alicia Hernandez, 35, and Janelle Ortiz, 28.
He also is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in the case of a woman who authorities believe would have been his fifth victim, Erika Peña. She testified she fled from his pickup when he pulled a gun on her late on Sept. 14.
All five women were sex workers who frequented San Bernardo Avenue in Laredo, and in a lengthy police interview that ended with a detailed confession, Ortiz said he had been a customer of most of them. Yet he expressed a hatred of prostitutes and said he wanted to “clean up” the avenue.
Webb County District Attorney Isidro R. “Chilo” Alaniz’s attempt to present the phone calls prompted an objection by
defense attorneys Joel Perez and Raymond Fuchs. They said the calls were not relevant and pointed out that the Webb County jail supervisor who introduced them at first identified the woman on the calls as Ortiz's mother, then corrected herself to say it was Ortiz's wife.
State District Judge Oscar J. Hale Jr. only allowed the call referencing the confession to be played for the jury.
On both the calls, Daniella Ortiz sounded upbeat as young children are heard in the background. In one, Juan David Ortiz spoke to the children, and when his wife returned to the phone, she says, “I got your letter. I love you, we're gonna be OK.”
Ortiz told his wife, “I'm a horrible father, I'm not
there for my kids.” He began to talk about God, then said he was reading the Bible and was “hoping for a miracle.”
“Only God has so much
power, if he wants something to happen, it will happen,” Daniella Ortiz replied. “All we can do is hope.”
Ortiz spoke about the
Casey Anthony case out of Florida in 2011, in which the young woman was acquitted of murder in the death of her daughter, Caylee Anthony, after months of lurid tabloid television coverage. Ortiz compared the media attention surrounding his case to hers.
Sitting near his defense attorneys and courtroom bailiffs, Ortiz began to weep as he heard his wife's voice and those of his children. At one point he held his head down on the desk.
Earlier Tuesday, a Texas Department of Public Safety ballistics expert testified that the bullets collected at all the crime scenes came from the same gun and matched the gun found in Ortiz's pickup when authorities searched it on Sept. 15, 2018.
Closing arguments are set for Wednesday in County Court at Law No 5. If convicted, Ortiz faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.