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Hi, this is Christina and Carmen, and this is another
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episode of a Spooky Tales, the podcast for all Things Hunted,
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a spooky true crime in Latin America. And today it
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is just true crime and it's very depressing and angering.
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That's just that's been the mood. Yeah, it's my fault,
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and yeah, that's what we have today.
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No panorma. Sorry, that's the mood in general. Yes, and
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yeah didn't.
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We don't have a listener story today because we're just
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gonna do the true crime case. But we still are
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receiving them always. So if you have a story that
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you want to send us, you can email as Spooky
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Tales at gmail dot com. You can dm us on
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any of our socials. You can submit it on Discord.
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You can dma on any of our socials like Instagram,
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even TikTok. You can call the Spooky hotline.
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All are cool.
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We love receiving them. Okay, and yeah again we're just
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gonna jump straight into my depressing case.
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Again.
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It's very infuriating and depressing. I can't stress that enough.
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So I am sharing a case where the murderer, the
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perpetrator is a former Border Patrol agent.
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Oh that one. Mm hmm. Yeah.
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When this happened, people asked, how could this happen? How
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could someone who is supposed to protect us become a
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monster and high defect. I would like to remind people
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that that's not the purpose of border patrol. Yeah, yeah,
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they are often the perpetators of violence. So to me,
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when I learned that it was a bored patrol agent
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that there is, it.
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Was no surprise.
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You were like, okay, makes sense. Yeah, I'm like shocking
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at all, the least shocked, like I could ever be.
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Yeah, but I get it.
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Not everyone's there yet, so yeah, anyway, the case. So,
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in the follow of twenty eighteen, terror struck the normally
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relative safe city of Laredo, Texas, compared to its Mexican counterpart,
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Nuevo Laredo, Latto is pretty safe. Laredo, not Nova Lao,
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is often included in the top ten safest cities in Texas.
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To me, Larelo seems like one of those places you
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only go if you're from there. It's not like a destination,
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like or you're yeah, yeah, yeah, you're there because you
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already live there and like you're not visiting or you
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have family there. That would be the only reason you're visiting. Yeah,
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it's not like I don't know Austin or San Antonio,
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but like I've only ever been to San Antonio. I
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can't like I haven't been to Texas, but if I went,
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I would probably go, Like I don't know like San Antonio,
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I don't know Houston unless we're visiting family. Yeah, Laredo
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is right next to Mexico along the Rio Grande, with
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the population of more than two hundred and sixty thousand.
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Going by crime rates alone, it's way safer than Dallas
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and Houston. So when four women were found dead in
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a span of two weeks, people were terrified. And then
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when connections between the murders were made.
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That's her grew.
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Where the connections between the murders. Yeah, okay, what did
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they say? No, I'm just repeating because I thought you
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said murderers and I was like what, oh no, no, Yeah,
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because two of them were found in the same general area,
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like literally so close to each other. Yeah, I was
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giving serial killer. Yes, yes, they were found in the
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rural roads outside of Lareedo. And these women were all
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known sex workers, all working in the same road San Bernardo,
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And this is Laredo's main road, and unlike other places,
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the sex industry here was not somewhere hidden away. Literally
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on the main road, everyone knew where it was. Blocks
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away from the high school, sex workers lined the main
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street out in the open. They were all mostly local
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and very close knit, and one of these close knit
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groups of friends was Melisaramirez, Janelle Ortiz and Claudine Luerra.
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They would sit together on an orange bench and chat
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between clients. They ate at the local takeia together. They
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shared clothes and the costs of motel rooms, and all
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three were very well known in the community. Melisar Ramirez
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was twenty nine, but she still had like this motherly
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role within the community. She had been working in San
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Bernardo for almost ten years, and she grew up in
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Rio Bravo, a low income community thirteen miles south of Ladedo,
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and she lived there with her mom, Cristina ba Navidez,
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and two of her kids, who were seven and three
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when all this was taking place twenty eighteen. It was
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a humble home with kids toy scattered around the yard
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of a mobile home, and Melissa was the third oldest
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of four siblings and as a kid she loved playing
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Mexican music on the accordion, which cool, very cool. She
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memorized all the lyrics of all of Selena's most famous songs,
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and since childhood she was known for her compassion. She
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was a really good student, but all of this changed
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when she was sexually assaulted by the uncle of one
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of her friends. Oh no, this was during high school
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and life became very difficult for her. After this, she
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turned to xanax to cope, dropped out of high school,
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then began using other drugs. By the time she became
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a mother who struggles with addiction were worse and you know,
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like everyone trying to get better, she would swear off drugs,
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be home with her kids and her mom, but it
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was difficult. It's a very difficult thing to do, and
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so then she would leave her kids again with her
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mom and take the bus to downtown Laedo and work
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the streets. And then she would be gone for a
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few days then return home again, and her mom and
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kids were always waiting for her back home. Whenever she
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would get there, Christina would cook Melissa's favorite meal for her.
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She always called her Miniamosa ever since she was a baby,
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and so when Melissa left on September tewod. Christina expected
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her back in a few days, like always, but this
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time it was different. Two detectives and two Texas Rangers
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were at her doorstep and they brought the worst news
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of Christina's life with them. Melissa had been found dead
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on a small access road twenty miles outside of Laedon.
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It was around noon on.
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The third September third when the Webb County Sheriff Department
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received a call from a rancher who had discovered a
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woman on the side of a dirt road.
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She had been.
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Lying face down. She was shot three times in the
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head and once in her right art, and she had
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been clutching a bag of M and ms when she
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was killed. Next to her there were forty caliber bullet
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casings and so to the police, this meant she had
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been shot execution style like at point blank range. And
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at the morgue, she was quickly identified as Melissa Ramidez.
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They used fingerprints, which then resulted in a two thousand
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and eight arrests for prostitution that she was in the system,
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and that's how they found out so quickly who it was,
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and the investigation started slow efforts with false leads. Christina
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remembered that Melissa had mentioned a man in a black truck,
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but after finding out who this man was, he was
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cleared completely like he had nothing to do with it.
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But unfortunately, rumors of a black truck spread among the
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women on San Bernardo and they were all warning each
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other to avoid a black truck, which again was a
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false rumor or false lead, And surveillance of the site
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showed that a police car had arrived before the assigned unit,
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or had arrived, like before the dispatch call sent a
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police car, there was already an officer there, and so
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this police car on surveillance they could see that it
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drove down the road and it turned around right where
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Melissa's body was, and so at first they were like, well,
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this is probably the murder, revisiting the murder scene. But no,
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after investigating, this was not the case. It was just
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a police officer who had been driving down the road
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to look at property he was going to buy.
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Oh that's what I thought at first, Yeah, it is.
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It seemed like that, and so I did leave. I guess,
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why would you want to stay there if you're not working.
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It's like, yeah, well, normally I think he would have
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to call it in, but he wasn't working yet. He
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was just in his car, probably like dropping his daughter
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off at school, and on the way there he stopped
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to look at this property. I'm not sure, but his
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daughter was in the car with oh, and he didn't
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want her to see, of course, so he turned around quickly.
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And so this at first made people think, oh, I
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got it's a police officer. And they were like, you know,
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just chasing these false leads, which again is always like,
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it's part of it, part of the investigation, but it
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sucks when they waste so much time that could have
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been you know, more fruitful. So the only leads they
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had went nowhere. And because of the location of where
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she was found, Border Patrol was brought in to assist
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with the investigation because you know, this area along the
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border is heavily surveilled, like there if we live in
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a state surveillance as a whole United States, that's a
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super state surveillance that they are under, yes, extreme, and
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you know, investigators knew that Border Patrol had automated cameras
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on a lot of these small access roads and they're
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going at all times, and so Border Patrol was asked
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to check license plates for any vehicles that were on
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that road at the time of the murder. And there
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was one Border Patrol in intelligence supervisor named Juanda Vidortis
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who led his team through these checks and he and
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his team cleared every driver.
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Hmmmm.
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And so for ten days the investigation was stalled. Melissa's
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killer could be anyone at this point. Then on the
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morning of September thirteenth, ten days after, forty two year
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old Claudine Luerra was found dead two miles from where
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Melissa Amidas had been discovered.
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Wow, And just like.
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Melissa, Claudine had been shot multiple times in the head,
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execution style. And they found the same type of forty
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caliber bullet casings next to her too. And it was
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a big rick driver who found her and called nine
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one one. But unlike Melissa, Claudine was still alive.
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Oh. The driver spotted.
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Her from where he was driving, pulled over, climbed down
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from his cab and checked on her and found her breathing.
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And not only that, but she hadn't managed to crawl
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from the grass like a hidden spot on the side
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of the road, deep in the grass, she crawled all
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the way to a visible spot on the road. That's
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how he was able to see her. But at this
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point she had been fighting for her life for almost
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five hours.
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Wow.
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She was transported to the hospital and she continued to
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live until that afternoon where she died from her head injuries.
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But a long time.
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Yeah, And at first, investigators tried to keep Claudine's murder quiet.
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They told the media that a woman died from head
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trauma at the hospital. They were like, yes, that happened,
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but they would say nothing else. But reporters found out
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how close together the women were found, and they connected
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the two murders right away, and so news about a
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serial killer loose on the streets of Ladedo spread quickly.
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And Claudie was one of Melissa's closest friends. But I'm
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not clear if this was part of the news being
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spread or that people just knew they were both sex
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workers that had been found two miles apart from each other.
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But you know, it would seem the killer knew they
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knew each other at least. And Claudine she grew up
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in Laedon. She attended the high school that is just
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a few blocks from San Bernardo. The streets, the street
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that they all worked on, and she had a very
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rough childhood and she never shared what happened to her.
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But something that changed her life forever took place when
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she was five, something traumatic, something that she has always
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said took all good.
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Away from her. Oh some terrible.
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Yeah, And she and her sister were known as Las
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Blanchitas in their childhood because they were I want to say,
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half Polish, half Mexican. And for some time she did
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try to move past her trauma. She was working as
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a clerk for the DA's office, but her struggle with
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drugs only got worse. In twenty fourteen. Her kids were
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from her care and plays with her sister, but her kids,
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like the goal of her oldest daughter, was to graduate
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as a nurse, have all their siblings buy a house, sorry,
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graduate as a nurse, buy a house, move all her siblings,
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her aunt, and her mom in the same house. They
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just wanted to all be together, even even through the
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struggles of their mom. Which is it's beautiful because again
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it is something that is so difficult for so many people. Yeah,
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And like Melissa, Claudine always talked about getting better, and
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just days before her own murder, the day Melissa was
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found dead, Claudine went to her older kid at her
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apartment and told her that she was scared and wanted
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to leave sex work for good because she was like,
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I could be next. And she said she knew who
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Melissa had been with last Oh, and Claudine's fears became true,