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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 brought him to justice.The story so farA female's body was found at Marine Creek Lake in northwest Fort Worth. Detective Curt Brannan was investigating but had not identified the victim. Victoria Curtis in Crowley, sick with worry over her missing niece, realized the horrible possibility.CHAPTER 14Beverly Brannan often learned more about her husband's job from co-workers at the Army Corps of Engineers in Fort Worth than from Curt Brannan himself. Someone from her office would read about the detective in the newspaper or see him on television -- up to his elbows again in one case or another -- and mention it to her."What did he do now?" she would ask, laughing.The Brannans had been married for 29 years by the summer of 2000, high school sweethearts who shared a commitment to their two sons, Cole and Jacob; a deep religious faith; and passions that ranged from karate to twin Harley-Davidson motorcycles to rodeo. Those were the things they talked about at home -- not murder -- because Curt didn't bring his work back to the family's 3 acres south of town.But sometimes homicide intruded, like the day when Beverly found crime scene photos that Curt had mistakenly left in the house and her curiosity got the best of her. The photos were of a young woman who had been shot in the head, her body dumped in a river."I picked them up and I thought, 'I don't know how in the world anyone could view something like this on a regular basis and not go crazy,'" she remembered.And sometimes the cases were so difficult or so painful that they would disrupt Curt's sleep, driving him to get up in the middle of the night to eat a bowl of cereal or turn on the television to distract himself. The murders of children were particularly hard. During those investigations, Beverly would see the hurt in her husband's eyes when he walked through the door. She remembered when Jacob was 6 months old and Curt went to investigate the killing of a baby. He came home and took his infant son in his arms and wouldn't let him go."He couldn't make enough love go into Jacob," Beverly said. "That really upset him."In the summer of 2000, Beverly saw the pain in her husband again, and for one of the few times in their life together, Curt spoke of it. A 13-year-old girl had sneaked out at night and ended up strangled, her body dumped on the shore of Marine Creek Lake."It's just a shame," he said to Beverly. "If she had just stayed home, I wouldn't be out there trying to find out who killed her."A sickening revelationIn the days after the body was found, Curt Brannan believed that the Jane Doe was a young woman, maybe in her 20s, and he combed through missing-persons reports with that in mind. He had talked to Victoria Curtis, who called on a Sunday and said her missing niece's nails were painted bright pink, just like the victim's. But Brannan told Curtis that the victim by the lake was probably much older than 13.
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