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This series contains explicit language and graphic descriptions of violence.
Editor's note: To Catch a Killer is the true story of killer Andy James Ortiz, his young victims, and the Fort Worth police and Tarrant County prosecutors who finally brought him to justice.The story so farTwo young women, ages 20 and 15, were found strangled in Fort Worth in 1997, but the two cases remained unconnected. Police were unable to solve the case of Brenda Salazar, and the investigation had just begun into the death of Armida Garcia, 15, on Aug. 3. Homicide Detective Joe Thornton spent a long night at the crime scene and the hospital, where he broke the news to the girl's parents.CHAPTER 7On Monday, Aug. 4, 1997, the day after 15-year-old Armida Garcia was raped and strangled in her home, Andy Ortiz's days of freedom seemed numbered. The notorious north-side gang member had terrorized his Fort Worth neighborhood for much of the previous decade but managed to sidestep a long prison term -- until now, police thought.Fort Worth homicide Detective Joe Thornton arrived at his desk before 8 that morning, and within minutes he got a call from a woman who said she was the mother of a boy who had dated Armida. The caller said she had been on the phone much of the night with the victim's closest friend, Arianna Barbosa, and Arianna had speculated that Ortiz was the killer.Thornton's pulse skipped the moment he heard the name. He had known about Ortiz for years, since his days as a rookie patrol officer working the north side, where other cops frequently complained about the criminal exploits of Ortiz and his two brothers, David and Elton. Thornton came face to face with the brothers on a June night in 1993 when he was supervisor of the SWAT unit and led a raid on the Ortiz home. He helped bust open the front door to serve a search warrant, because the brothers were suspected of making Molotov cocktails for use in gang reprisals. That night, three homemade bombs were found beneath the hood of an Ortiz family car. All three brothers were home at the time, and Thornton helped take them into custody.But it was just another missed opportunity to put Andy Ortiz away. The brothers insisted the bombs were planted by members of a rival gang, and ultimately police believed they could not prove otherwise. So Andy Ortiz's criminal odyssey continued. He was free on a day in 1995 when he happened into Armida Garcia at a neighborhood convenience store.The day after Armida's murder, Thornton learned quickly how the next two years had played out between the two. As time passed, Ortiz had been increasingly aggressive in his pursuit of the girl and had grown angrier when she refused his advances. The last time Armida had spurned Ortiz was on the day of her death.So before lunch on the first day of the investigation, the detective was almost certain he knew the identity of Armida's killer. But his excitement was momentary."Now," Thornton wondered, "how am I going to prove it?"
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