Chapter 24 | 'I'm not going to admit to nothing that I didn't do'

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

Andy Ortiz was convicted of murdering Brenda Salazar, 20, and Armida Garcia, 15, but was never charged in the death of Krystal Minjarez, 13.

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

CHAPTER 24

On an October afternoon in 2001, after two weeks of trials, two guilty verdicts and two life sentences for Andy Ortiz, two grieving mothers had the final word.

Graciela Garcia spoke first, a beautiful woman in her 40s who sat in the witness stand and dabbed at tears.

"I want to ask you if you have a conscience about what you did," Armida Garcia's mother said through an interpreter. She looked across the courtroom toward the defendant, who was seated next to his lawyers. "I know I should be happy about what has happened to you, but I am not. No matter what kind of punishment you receive, you will never bring my daughter back -- or the other child."

Family members sobbed in the gallery as the mother spoke, and jurors quietly wept. Ortiz looked at the ceiling and scratched his chin.

Then Brenda Salazar's mother came forward.

"Andy Ortiz, you took away my daughter's life ... and you took away a part of us," Rosa Maria Salazar said. "She was seeking a profession and a career, and I took her back home dead." Ortiz was led from the courtroom in shackles a few minutes later.

In a courthouse corridor, the two mothers embraced and exchanged phone numbers, promising to keep in touch because, as Rosa Maria Salazar said that day, they were forever united "in the same pain."

'God had sent me an angel'

Several years later, Brenda's mother sat at a round kitchen table in her South Texas home, her eyes focused on a tissue damp from tears. Rosa Maria Salazar folded the tissue once, then again, and when it came apart in her hands, her surviving daughter, Rosalia, handed her another.

Life had gone on, Brenda's mother said. She and her husband lived in a new home, and Rosa Maria had opened a place called Brenda's Beauty Shop, where haircuts went for $7. Visits to the cemetery were less frequent, but the pain was still raw, and her heart was still broken. "In the morning, I get up and think about her," Rosa Maria Salazar said. "At night, I go to bed, and again I think about her. She never goes away in my mind. Sometimes I think that by now she might be married with children. But God's wishes were different. I give thanks to God for the 20 years I was able to have with her. It was like God had sent me an angel."

A lifetime of pain

In a small, tidy Fort Worth apartment, Graciela Garcia met visitors in her living room , surrounded by pictures of Armida -- many of the girl in her quinceañera dress. The photographs are Graciela's only keepsakes of her daughter. There's no need for others, the mother explained, because Armida is always in her head.

Graciela dabbed away tears and spoke about the place where her daughter still lives -- in her dreams.

"I never dream about her death," she said. "[She's] always alive. Sometimes we even fight, or I scold her and she gets mad at me."

Then she told of her shattered family. Several years after Armida's death, her parents divorced, a breakup brought on by the weight of their shared grief. Armida's brother, Fernando, now in his early 20s, still struggles with the loss of his sister and with the memories of finding her dead.

"My daughter got killed and my 13-year-old son found her," Graciela said. "I had two pains. ... I wondered why it couldn't have been me who found her or my ex-husband. Why did it have to be him? He was for a while not doing very well. He wasn't doing well at school. I don't think he's ever going to forget it."

Graciela is not doing well, either.