Posted on Mon, Feb. 18, 2008

Chapter 9 | An encounter in an alley leads to a wall of silence

By TIM MADIGAN, with DEANNA BOYD and MELODY McDONALD

Star-Telegram staff writers

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 brought him to justice.

The story so far

Homicide Detective Joe Thornton was sure that gang member Andy Ortiz had killed 15-year-old Armida Garcia, but he still had to prove it. So far, an interrogation has proved fruitless.

CHAPTER 9

Cynthia Catano had a sudden and desperate craving for peanuts and Dr Pepper, which she knew could be satisfied with a short walk to the convenience store down the street. So just before dark that Sunday night, Aug. 3, 1997, the pregnant woman set off on foot. Her 11-year-old daughter, Ann, decided to tag along for company. (At their request, the mother and daughter are not identified by their full, legal names.)

They were on their way home, walking into the mouth of the alley behind their house, when a young man sprinting down the narrow pathway from the opposite direction nearly ran them over. Cynthia didn't see his face, but her daughter got a good look, recognizing him as a guy she had seen before in the neighborhood. He was dressed in khaki pants and a white muscle shirt and had a dark shirt slung over one shoulder. He had short dark hair and a tattoo sprawling down one arm. And he looked agitated, angry or frightened as he crossed Northside Drive and sprinted up Lagonda Avenue.

Yet Ann didn't give him a second thought because guys were always running back and forth in the alley. Then, as she was getting ready for bed, she heard sirens coming from the next block. Ann put on a pair of tennis shoes and ran with her mother from her home on Lagonda toward the noise on Denver Avenue, where her good friend Armida Garcia lived.

Armida was four years older, but she and Ann always attended each other's birthday parties and family functions. Their moms were best friends, so Ann had spent almost as much time in Armida's home over the years as she had in her own. But that night, as she and her mother rounded the corner, Ann saw police at Armida's house, and when she looked in the ambulance, she saw her friend lying motionless beneath frantic emergency workers. As they stood together outside the ambulance, Cynthia clung to Graciela Garcia, Armida's mother, who had rushed home after being alerted by a relative.

Ann's head was spinning. What terrible thing had happened? She begged her mother to explain. But all Cynthia would say was that Armida would be fine and that Ann needed to walk back home so the two mothers could ride together to the hospital. Ann could see that Armida wasn't fine. And sometime before midnight her mother called from the hospital to confirm that her friend was dead.

The days to come were a blur of mourning. Ann remembered Armida's kindness, her beautiful singing voice and her resemblance to the famous Tejano singer Selena. In fact, Ann had been sure that Armida herself would be famous someday. But now she was gone, just like that. The adults said that a man had come into her house and killed her, strangled her with shoelaces. And as the days passed, Ann started to think she knew who that man was, because even an 11-year-old could put the horrifying pieces together.

Ann remembered how he looked in the alley, coming from the direction of Armida's back door not long before sirens punctured the night. Then, just a few days after Armida was killed, Ann saw the man's face again, this time on the television news. His name was Andy Ortiz, the newscaster said, a convicted felon who was wanted in Armida's murder. The girl screamed for her mother, who rushed into the room.

"Look, that's the guy!" Ann cried, pointing at the television. "That's the one we saw in the alley."

Cynthia immediately called Armida's mother, who hurried across the alley to hear Ann's story. The three of them stood in the kitchen discussing what to do. Detectives would certainly want to know what Ann had seen, but the girl was terrified and for good reason. Ortiz had already proved he could kill. Maybe the police had enough evidence against him, because there was a warrant for his arrest. Maybe they didn't really need another witness. Cynthia wanted her daughter to remain silent, and the victim's mother agreed.

For the next three years, the three kept their secret. The neighborhood, Graciela remembered in a recent interview, was scared.

A big break in the case?

Unaware of the key witness and frustrated by Ortiz's unwillingness to confess, Detective Joe Thornton began pursuing other leads and witnesses. Among the most promising was Michael Botello, the friend who had sheltered Ortiz for the two days before his arrest. Thornton had a strong hunch that Ortiz and Botello had talked about Armida's murder, that Ortiz had probably even bragged about it.

Thornton tracked Botello down the Monday morning after Ortiz was arrested and immediately took him to police headquarters downtown. In the homicide unit interview room, a fidgety Botello described how Ortiz had appeared on his doorstep, saying he needed a place to hide because the cops were after him for capital murder.

"If you don't believe it, just watch the news," Ortiz reportedly told Botello.

Botello said he invited Ortiz inside and, sure enough, saw Ortiz's photograph in a TV report about Armida's murder. But as they watched the report, Ortiz denied killing the girl, Botello told Thornton in that first interview. Ortiz said the cops were harassing him because he had a long criminal record. That's why Botello agreed to hide Ortiz and even gave the fugitive a ride to his lawyer's office.

Thornton wasn't buying it. He was certain Botello was lying and was willing to make the guy's life miserable until he got the truth. In late October, after weeks of pestering by Thornton, Botello finally agreed to undergo a polygraph exam. When he failed to show for his appointment, Thornton promptly had Botello arrested on suspicion of harboring a fugitive.

A few weeks later, on Nov. 5, Thornton tried again, checking Botello out of the Tarrant County Jail and personally driving him to the office of a polygraph examiner. This time Botello followed through, took the lie detector test and flunked it. Faced with proof of his deception, Botello finally changed his story.

"Andy said he killed her with his hands," a tearful Botello told Thornton that day. "Andy said she had a boyfriend; that's what made him [snap]. Andy said they were at her house by the window in a bedroom. Andy said, 'I left her there, dead.' I believed Andy when he said he killed her, and I don't think he made it up."

Thornton was elated. Botello's statement bolstered his circumstantial case against Ortiz, one that now might satisfy Tarrant County prosecutors. The detective quickly arranged for Botello to tell his story to Alan Levy, the chief felony prosecutor in the district attorney's office.

But just that quickly, Thornton's hopes came crashing down again. Botello flipped when he spoke to Levy, saying he had lied to Thornton about Ortiz's admission because he thought it would get him out of jail.

"I finally thought that I had broken him," Thornton remembered. "I believed all along -- and I still believe -- that Andy told him about it. But when I get him over there [to talk to Levy], he takes three steps back. I had gone from having a little bit of hope to thinking there was nothing that this guy could say that I could believe."

Thornton was back to square one, left to wait for long-delayed tests on hair fibers found on Armida's body that might provide a DNA link to her killer. In the end, those results were no help, either. Which meant that Thornton had just one other chance to nail his suspect. It came in January 1998.

Stymied again

In the months since Armida's death, Thornton had grown familiar with a woman caller's voice. Her son had once dated Armida, which gave her license to call the detective and pass along the latest tidbits from the street. Most of her information was worthless rumor or hearsay. But five months after Armida's death, the woman called with a lead that Thornton knew was worth checking out.

She said her tip came from Fernando Garcia, the 13-year-old boy who found his sister's body that terrible night in August. Fernando had told her about a recent conversation with his father, who mentioned something about another witness, a person from the neighborhood who had seen a man run from Armida's house about the time of the murder.

Thornton thanked the woman and followed up a few days later. On Jan. 20, 1998, he and his partner, Manny Reyes, drove back out to Denver Avenue and found Graciela Garcia at home. Reyes spoke to her in Spanish about another possible witness, someone who might have seen Armida's killer running away. It was really important that detectives talk to this person, Reyes said. Did Graciela know anything?

Armida's mother shook her head. She said she had no idea who that witness might be.

Next: Some detectives and prosecutors disagree over the case.

On TV: A Star-Telegram documentary about Andy Ortiz's crimes will debut at 8 p.m. March 9 on KTXA/Channel 21.

Timeline

1984: Detective Curt Brannan joins the homicide unit of the Fort Worth Police Department.

Nov. 25, 1990: Andy Ortiz is arrested in the burglary of a car, the first of his many arrests as an adult.

Sept. 4, 1991: Ortiz is accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl. An aggravated-kidnapping charge is dismissed as part of a plea bargain when Ortiz agrees to a nine-year sentence for earlier burglaries. He is paroled after nine months.

Aug. 8, 1993: Ortiz is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl, but there isn't enough evidence to go to trial. He is returned to jail on a parole violation and is released after serving one year.

Early 1995: Ortiz first meets 13-year-old Armida Garcia at a convenience store and gets her phone number.

1995: Ortiz begins corresponding with and calling Garcia from jail, where he is doing time on a theft charge.

December 1995: Ortiz is released from prison.

Summer 1996: Nineteen-year-old Brenda Salazar moves to North Texas to pursue a job in the airline industry.

1997: Detective Joe Thornton joins the homicide unit.

May 26, 1997: Salazar's roommate returns from out of town and discovers Salazar's body in their apartment just after 5 p.m. She was killed either late on May 25 or early on May 26.

May 28, 1997: Salazar's parents come to Fort Worth to meet with Brannan.

July 9, 1997: A 12-year-old girl is raped by a man matching Ortiz's description; fearing reprisals, she decides not to pursue the case.

July 19, 1997: Ortiz tries to kiss Garcia and is rebuffed by her; they don't speak again for two weeks.

Aug. 3, 1997: Garcia is strangled in her parents' bedroom on Fort Worth's north side.

Aug. 4, 1997: A caller tips off Thornton that Ortiz might be her killer.

Aug. 5, 1997: A warrant is issued for Ortiz on a charge of capital murder.

Aug. 7, 1997: A mug shot of Ortiz identifying him as a suspect runs in the Star-Telegram.

Aug. 8, 1997: Ortiz is arrested in Garcia's killing; Thornton tries to get a confession from Ortiz but is unsuccessful.

Fall 1997: The Salazar murder case grows cold.