Posted on Fri, Feb. 29, 2008

Chapter 17 | Suspect is willing to talk, but how much will he say?

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

A search of the Ortiz home turned up artifacts of sexual obsession. Among the items confiscated were dozens of photographs of Hispanic girls, some of whom are shown being fondled by Andy Ortiz, and more than 100 slips of paper with girls' phone numbers written on them. As police began calling the numbers, Brannan took a phone call. It was Ortiz, saying he was willing to talk.

CHAPTER 17

Late on the afternoon of Wednesday, July 26, 2000, Detective Curt Brannan pulled up again to the house on Lee Avenue where he and a team of officers had executed a search warrant that morning. But this time, he didn't even have to knock. Murder suspect Andy Ortiz had been watching for him and emerged from the back of the house to meet Brannan and two other officers, Detective Tom Boetcher and crime scene specialist Weldon Walles. So this was the famous Andy James Ortiz, Brannan thought, the gang member who had terrorized the north side for years, the sadistic pervert who had probably killed at least two girls and God only knew how many more.

Talk about a wolf in sheep's clothing. Ortiz was short and overweight, with close-cropped dark hair and a goatee on a doughy face. He was dressed in baggy pants and a T-shirt. His handshake was flabby, his voice little more than a whisper, as if he thought he could fool the police with a choirboy demeanor. Go ahead, Brannan thought. Try to play me. Just keep thinking you're smarter than I am. Keep thinking you're two or three steps ahead of the cops. Keep thinking that because you beat a murder rap three years ago, you can beat another one now. Brannan, a Fort Worth senior homicide detective, had been down this road before.

As he stood with Ortiz, Brannan decided to use the "Columbo" approach: Keep the conversation casual, the likable cop just checking things out, needing the suspect's help. After the handshake, the tall detective in a white cowboy hat patted Ortiz reassuringly on the shoulder. He thanked the suspect for calling. He apologized for any inconvenience. Brannan wanted Ortiz to like him, to think that the detective was really on his side, all part of the delicate dance between veteran homicide detective and hardened criminal. Anything to keep him from clamming up, Brannan thought. Anything to keep him talking.

"You're out there playing semi-ignorant, not by acting dumb but just by being kind of blase about it, like it was no big deal," Brannan recalled recently. "I would tell him that I'm not out there to cause any problems or arrest anybody. I'm just trying to figure out what happened to this girl. We think she might have been over here at a party or something. I would say, 'I'll tell you what's going on and maybe you can help.' That kind of approach.

"It's a hard thing to do sometimes," the detective added. "I'd rather choke him than shake his hand."

Brannan and Ortiz chatted while Boetcher and Walles finished some business left over from the search, examining the trunk of the gray Cadillac, a family car parked near the home. As they worked, Ortiz pointed out pieces of wire inside the car, describing how they had been used with one stereo or another. Thirteen-year-old Krystal Minjarez had been strangled with a piece of speaker wire the week before.

"We appreciate that you're being so helpful," Brannan said.

"No problem," Ortiz said.

"Since you're being so helpful, maybe you and I could sit down in my car and talk," Brannan said.

Ortiz hesitated and looked toward the rear of his house, where his mother, Stella, was now standing outside.

"Just a minute," he said, walking in her direction.

Mother and son engaged in an animated conversation just out of earshot. Brannan guessed that Stella Ortiz was trying to keep her son away from the detective, to get him to clam up. (Stella Ortiz declined repeated interview requests for this story.)

"Maybe I should talk to an attorney before I talk to you," Ortiz said when he walked back.

Brannan's stomach lurched, but he didn't show it. He was still the Cowboy Columbo, as nice as he could be.

"I don't have a problem with that," Brannan said. "In fact, that's quite all right. I won't ask you any more questions. We'll just collect up all this stuff out of this car and be on our way."

Well, maybe it wouldn't hurt to talk for a few minutes, Ortiz said. Brannan said he thought that would be fine.

Inside the car

The previous week, Krystal had sneaked out of her aunt's Crowley trailer home, knocked on a friend's bedroom window and borrowed the friend's phone to call a man she knew as Jaime. A short while later, Krystal got into a light-colored sedan. Brannan was convinced that Ortiz had murdered Krystal and that he had raped and strangled another girl in Fort Worth three years before. But that Wednesday afternoon in his car, before Brannan asked any questions about Krystal and her death, he wanted to make a few things clear, get everything on the record. Experience told him that in the future, a defense attorney could claim that Brannan had gotten physical with Ortiz to get him to talk.

"Mr. Ortiz has been very cooperative and has volunteered quite a bit of information concerning this investigation," Brannan said into his tape recorder as Ortiz sat next to him in the passenger seat. The conversation began at 5:56 p.m. "Mr. Ortiz has been advised that he is not in custody. He never has been and he voluntarily accompanied me to the vehicle and has voluntarily discussed with me what he knows about the case."

Brannan turned to Ortiz.

"Is all that pretty accurate and true?" Brannan asked.

"Yes, sir," Ortiz replied softly.

Brannan went over it again, just to be sure. Ortiz was not under arrest. He had the right to an attorney, and if he couldn't afford it, one would be appointed. Ortiz was free to leave the car at any time. But any statement he made could be used against him in court.

"Do you understand that, son?" Brannan asked.

"Yes, sir," Ortiz replied, adding that he had been questioned by detectives before. He knew his rights.

"OK," Brannan said. "Why don't you tell me what happened the best that you can remember, and then I'll go back and ask any questions after you get through, to kind of clear things up."

Like it was no big deal.

'I got a problem with this'

During the search of the Ortiz home, detectives had found abundant evidence of sexual obsession and mounds of speaker wire similar to what had been used to strangle Krystal. But sexual obsession was not a crime, and a forensic analysis would be necessary to determine whether the wire in the home matched the murder weapon. By that evening, there was still no proof that Krystal had been with Ortiz the night she was murdered. But the suspect didn't know that. Brannan talked to Ortiz as if he knew for certain that Ortiz had picked up Krystal that night. The only thing that needed clearing up, Brannan told Ortiz, was why.

"With people like that, if they believe you can prove something they know to be true, they'll try to rationalize it," Brannan said. "I just wanted to get as much as I could out of him."

And sure enough, after Brannan covered his procedural bases, Ortiz started to sing.

"Well, I think it was, like, Tuesday night or something," Ortiz said. "A girl, Krystal, called me and asked me what I was doing. She asked if I could do her a favor. ... I didn't even know it was her at first and then ... she told me she had got kicked out, that she had no place to stay. I said, 'Well, you can't stay here.' [She said,] 'Not, like, live there, just, like, kick back until she can get a hold of somebody.' And I told her, 'Yeah,' and I went to pick her up."

"She told you this over the phone?" Brannan asked.

"Yes, sir," Ortiz replied.

Just then the tape ran out and the recorder clicked off.

"Hold on for a second, son," Brannan said.

As he flipped the tape over, the detective struggled to conceal his excitement. Investigators might not have physical evidence placing the suspect and victim together, but Ortiz had just admitted it; he had copped to knowing Krystal and picking her up the night she disappeared. Just keep talking, my friend, Brannan thought. The detective even thought Ortiz might just break down and admit the whole thing, saying that he killed the girl but it was an accident, or that he was present when she was killed but another guy did it. That's what murderers did when they were caught, Brannan knew. They rationalized.

With the tape recorder running again, Ortiz kept talking. He went into greater detail, telling Brannan how he had driven to Crowley in his mother's Ford Taurus and called Krystal from a pay phone outside a Dairy Queen. He picked the girl up about 2 a.m. outside her friend's home and drove Krystal back to his house, where the two of them started watching television.

A short time later, Ortiz said, his friend Hector Gomez came and went. Then another friend, Michael Olguin, stopped by. Michael and Krystal started kissing, Ortiz said.

"They were messing around, like, laying on the floor. That's about it. Just, like, giggling and kissing and stuff like that," Ortiz said.

"Giggling and kissing and stuff," Brannan repeated.

"Nothing, like, real major," Ortiz said. "He, like, got his hands around her, like, hugging her, cuddling her, something like that."

A few hours later, Ortiz said, Krystal asked for a ride home. Her aunt would be leaving for work soon, and the girl said she wanted to get back. She said she wanted to apologize for sneaking out and for her part in the argument the night before. But Ortiz said he told Krystal that he could not take her home.

"I told her I couldn't because my dad's car was blocking my mom's, and I can't wake them up, especially not with her there," Ortiz told Brannan. "They get mad, you know, having a girl there."

Ortiz, whose parents were living in a garage apartment out back, said he suggested that Olguin take Krystal home instead.

"I asked her if that was cool," Ortiz said. "She said, 'Yeah,' just as long as she got home, it didn't matter. And that was pretty much it. ... They left and went about their business."

As he listened, Brannan was almost certain Ortiz was lying, at least about the last part. The detective faced Ortiz in the car, watching for any sudden movement, ready to defend himself in the unlikely event that the suspect tried something stupid. Brannan also keyed in on Ortiz's body language, how he looked at the floor of the Chevy Lumina, or out to the place where his mother pretended to be working in a flower garden. The detective noted how his suspect crossed his arms in front of him, another indication that Ortiz was probably lying.

"Did she tell you how old she was?" Brannan asked.

"She told me at the time she was 16," Ortiz said.

"When did you find out she was only 13?" Brannan asked.

"Earlier today, when my mom told me," Ortiz said.

Brannan shed his Columbo shtick. His voice grew stern.

"I believe that something happened before she left here," Brannan said. Ortiz looked off toward his mother. "It's very important you tell me the truth about this now. I think you have been very truthful and forthright up to this point. But right here I got a problem with this. I'm asking you again: Now what really happened before Michael left with her?"

Ortiz began to stammer.

"I'm telling ya," he said. "To me they were talking good. It's not like they were real mad at each other. I don't know ... I mean ... I don't know. I can't ..."

"Did Michael jump on her before he left here?" Brannan asked.

"No."

"Did Michael do anything unusual, like tie her up or wrap anything around her or get anything from your house that he might have put on her before he left here?" Brannan asked. "You know we've been out looking in [the family's] car and in your house, collecting some different types of wire. Did he take any wire from you?"

"Naw," Ortiz replied. "The only thing he took from here was some beer."

In the end, Ortiz did not admit to the killing. After 30 minutes, Brannan began to wrap up the interview.

"Did I ever threaten you or intimidate you, or did I ever hit you or anything like that?" Brannan asked again.

"Um."

"Of course not, did I?"

"Oh, no, sir," Ortiz said.

Brannan shut off the recorder. As the two men walked back toward the house, the detective shook Ortiz's hand and patted him on the back, thanking him again for being so helpful. Brannan thought to himself, "Next time, I won't be nearly so nice."

Next: An angry Ortiz crony wears a wire.

TIMELINE

Sept. 4, 1991: Andy Ortiz is accused of kidnapping a 13-year-old girl. That charge is dismissed 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 the case doesn't go to trial. He returns to jail on a parole violation and serves one year.

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

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

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.

May 26, 1997: Salazar's roommate discovers Salazar's body in their apartment just after 5 p.m.

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

Aug. 3, 1997: Garcia is strangled in her parents' bedroom.

Aug. 8, 1997: Ortiz is arrested in the Garcia killing; Detective Joe Thornton tries to get Ortiz to confess but is unsuccessful.

Fall 1997: The Salazar murder case grows cold.

Late 1997: Ortiz is jailed on parole violations; he begins corresponding with a 15-year-old named Anna.

January 1998: Thornton gets a tip about Ortiz fleeing from Garcia's home the night of the killing, but he can't find the witness.

July 1999: Ortiz is released from jail; he moves in with Anna's family.

Jan. 29, 2000: Ortiz marries Anna.

March 8, 2000: Ortiz is kicked out of the house by his mother-in-law.

July 18, 2000: Krystal Minjarez sneaks out of her home in Crowley and calls a man named "Jaime." He picks her up, and she calls a friend later to say she is at his home.

July 21, 2000: Minjarez's body is found at Marine Creek Lake.

July 25, 2000: After finding Ortiz's address listed in Minjarez's address book, Detective Curt Brannan gets a search warrant.

July 26, 2000: Police find photos of scantily clad young women and phone numbers of hundreds of girls in Ortiz's room; Ortiz agrees to talk with Brannan that afternoon.

Late July-August 2000: Police spend weeks contacting the young women whose phone numbers were found in Ortiz's room, both to check on their welfare and to gather evidence.