Strangler

by Corey Mitchell

  Espinola lifted up Estrada’s long hair off the back of her neck to take a closer look. He saw that the string had been knotted very tight at the back of her neck. A small piece of wood that measured 3 inches in length by inches in diameter was inserted into the string. The wood appeared to be used as a tightening tool and both the wood and the string were intertwined with Carmen’s hair. Dr. Espinola was able to separate the items from her hair and remove the ligature from around her neck. He noted that the impression left by the weapon measured a quarter inch in width.

  Dr. Espinola directed his attention to Carmen’s upper torso and chest area. He glanced at her left breast and determined that the abrasions first seen by Sergeant Kennedy were probably, in fact, bite marks from human teeth. The medical examiner also noted that there was blood in Carmen’s vulva and vagina, as well as a contusion on the vagina in the “seven o’clock position.”

  After finishing up the external observation of Carmen Estrada, Dr. Espinola began the internal investigation. After opening up the twenty-one-year-old young woman’s body, one which had been breathing and functioning just fine less than ten hours earlier, Dr. Espinola dictated that most everything inside Carmen seemed normal.

  Except, of course, her throat and neck area.

  There were several hemorrhages underneath where the ligature covered her light brown skin. Petechial hemorrhages were also found on her larynx and vocal cords. Also, her hyoid bone remained intact. The hyoid bone is oftentimes snapped when a person chokes someone to death with their hands. There was, however, slight hemorrhaging of the soft tissues that surrounded her hyoid bone.

  Dr. Espinola’s conclusion as to the cause of death for Carmen Estrada was fairly obvious: “asphyxia due to ligature strangulation.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Saturday, April 18, 1992,

  Houston, Texas.

  Sergeant Kennedy was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the Carmen Estrada case and enlisted the assistance of HPD sergeant Jim Ramsey. Kennedy asked Ramsey to take Estrada’s daily route to work, be it by bus or on foot, so he could question the young woman’s neighbors.

  Kennedy thought one possibility may have been that Estrada had been abducted while walking to work or while waiting for her bus. So, Ramsey also knocked on several hundred residents’ doors along her route to see if anyone saw anything. Unfortunately, he struck out.

  Kennedy also had members of the Chicano Squad create flyers with Estrada’s photo and plaster them all over the Spring Branch area. The Chicano Squad also contacted the local Spanish-speaking media to help spread the word requesting information about the murder. This lit a fuse, and the police department received hundreds of calls in regard to the murder. Unfortunately, as is usually the case, almost all of them came from crackpots or vengeful boyfriends or girlfriends. The police, however, had no choice but to look into each and every single lead for fear of leaving the appropriate stone unturned.

  Sergeant Kennedy also enlisted the help of Sergeant Bill Dunn, from the HPD Sex Crimes Unit (SCU), whom Kennedy asked to try and find any similar cases to the Estrada murder. Unfortunately, despite Sergeant Kennedy and his staff sifting through hundreds of cases, they could not come up with anything in regard to Carmen Estrada.

  But one benefit of requesting help from Sex Crimes was that Sergeant Dunn was able to have suspects come in and give up DNA samples to see if he could match the DNA recovered from under Carmen’s fingernails and the semen allegedly discovered in Carmen’s mouth. No matching DNA samples turned up, but Kennedy and Dunn were able to rule out certain suspects.

  Sergeant Kennedy then contacted the Houston Chapter of Crime Stoppers for their assistance. Crime Stoppers, a crime-fighting organization that offers money to potential witnesses if their information leads to the arrest and conviction of criminal suspects, broadcasted information on the local media, but again, they received several tips that turned out to be worthless.

  Despite the efforts of Sergeant Hal Kennedy, all roads led to dead ends in the case that came to be known as the “Dairy Queen Girl Murder.”

  Part II

  DIANA

  The ego is not master in its own house.

  —Sigmund Freud

  CHAPTER 9

  Sunday, August 7, 1994, noon,

  6600 block of North Main Street,

  Houston, Texas.

  Diana Rebollar stepped outside the front door of her family’s home in the area known as The Heights and into the sweltering lunchtime heat of Houston, Texas. The Heights area sandwiched in between two major freeways—the North Loop West (Loop 610) and Interstate 10 (I-10)—was considered to be a calm, family-oriented neighborhood, conveniently located only five minutes north of downtown Houston. It is comprised of several medium-sized Victorian-era homes, as well as Craftsman bungalows, with numerous parks that dot the landscape and many streets that are kept cool by lush sweeping trees. The Heights has sometimes been called “the Mayberry RFD of Houston.”

  Diana’s family lived in the front half of a duplex in a very modest-sized area of less than one thousand square feet. Tight quarters for a large family composed of parents, stepparents, grandmothers, cousins, brothers, sisters, stepbrothers, and stepsisters.

  Diana was a very sweet, yet serious little girl. Born in Guerrero, Mexico, on September 3, 1984, she was the first child of Virginia and Rujilio Rebollar. She was followed the next year by brother Rosario, and the year after that by another brother, Rujilio Jr., whom everyone would call “Jose.”

  When Diana was only three years old, her father was murdered in the streets of Nuevo, Mexico. Not long thereafter, Diana would take to caring for her brothers and would often help her mother with household chores. Virginia described Diana as very “motherly.”

  Diana had aspirations of becoming a teacher one day. Even as a child she liked to “teach class” whenever there were guests over. She would have her company sit in chairs while she stood in front of the kitchen wall and wipe board and pretend to be in front of a chalkboard. After her lessons for the day she would send the guests away with homework.

  Diana herself was a stellar student. She was easily self-motivated and very studious. She made straight A’s in all her classes and the teachers adored her. She was looking forward to her upcoming tenth birthday and starting fourth grade at nearby Burrus Elementary School.

  So, without a care in the world, the nine-year-old girl bounced down the three maroon concrete steps that had two house numbers and the name Steele spelled out in metal letters and numerals.

  Her aunt Hermina Piedra had given her a $5 bill and asked her to fetch some sugar so they could sweeten their watermelon drinks. It only required walking two blocks, up north on Main Street to the Wing Fong grocery store, a task Diana had successfully undertaken several times throughout the summer. No one thought anything of sending the bilingual girl out on her own into their quaint, predominantly Hispanic neighborhood. And whether she was purchasing groceries or selling Chiclets at the C & F Drive Inn, a nearby watering hole, Diana was always safe and responsible.

  Diana was dressed in blue flower shorts, a black Halloween T-shirt which had press-on patches of a bright orange pumpkin and a black cat on the chest, and a purple bat on the upper right area of the shirt near the sleeve. She wore her long brown hair braided in a ponytail, held up with an elastic band with medium-sized plastic baubles. Two tiny specks of gold dotted the bottoms of her earlobes.

  As Diana stepped off the porch, she angled right onto the cracked cement sidewalk and headed north. The Wing Fong grocery store was located on the corner of Twenty-ninth Street and Main Street, right next to the freeway. Her round-trip, if she didn’t dillydally, should have taken no longer than five to ten minutes.

  It was not unusual for Diana’s mother not to be aware of where her oldest daughter was—always having her hands full with the younger children.

  Still, Virginia was very proud of her beautiful daughter. As a single mother, she had come to America from Mexico by herself to provide
a better life for Diana and the rest of her family.

  One year after Virginia emigrated, she sent for Diana. It was also at this time that she met the man who would become her new husband. His name was Jose Salazar, and he had a son named Jose Trinidad Salazar Jr., who was now four years old. Eventually Virginia and Jose were able to send for Rosario and Rujilio Jr. to come live with them in Houston, and in the spring of 1990, Virginia and Jose had a daughter of their own, Olga Nellie.

  Virginia entrusted Diana with all of the younger children. She knew her oldest daughter was smart and responsible and could easily handle her younger brothers and sisters.

  Sometime between 12:20 and 12:30 P.M., Virginia realized that Diana had not returned with the sugar. She placed her youngest daughter, Olga, in her swing, and went out the same front door to search for Diana. She followed her daughter’s path down the sidewalk to the Wing Fong grocery store. She did not spot her coming back, so she went into the store. A small shop, it did not take long for her to scan the entire area.

  Diana was nowhere to be found.

  Virginia began to get concerned as she rushed out of the store, crossed west on Main Street, and walked down the opposite sidewalk back to her home. She became even more anxious as she passed a house where an older woman had recently been murdered and her dead body had been left on her own front porch—on the opposite side of the street from her own home. By the time she reached her stoop, Virginia was frantic. She ran inside to find her husband.

  “Diana has not come home from the store! We need to call the police, now!” she screamed to him in Spanish. Jose did not hesitate as he picked up the telephone and dialed 911.

  * * *

  Houston police officer Fin Fahy knocked on the Salazars’ front door. The three-year veteran worked in the Missing Persons Division. Before he joined the Houston Police Department, Fahy was a member of the United States Navy and had been deployed on assault craft units throughout Southeast Asia. But on this day, Fahy’s most important skill was his fluency in Spanish, so he could speak with Diana Rebollar’s family.

  Virginia answered the front door and hurried the officer into her home. Officer Fahy could see the tears streaming down Mrs. Salazar’s face.

  “Our daughter did not come home,” Virginia cried.

  Fahy knew he needed to move quickly so he began a search inside the Salazar home. Oftentimes, children under ten years of age who are believed to be missing can actually be located within their own residence playing hide-and-seek. Officer Fahy and his fellow officers looked in closets, in bathrooms, in bedrooms, underneath beds, and found no sign of Diana. Their next objective was to search the immediate outside perimeter of the home. They checked the backyard, behind bushes, and in the duplex garage, but again, found nothing.

  The Missing Persons search team determined she was not on the premises, so they expanded their search to head north along Diana’s path to the Wing Fong grocery store. One of the officers was able to confirm with a store employee that Diana had been inside the store, purchased the sugar, and left the store to return home.

  The officers left the store and began to canvass the neighborhood. They were further able to determine that Diana was spotted leaving the store, crossing Twenty-ninth Street, heading south on the sidewalk, and up to the C & F Drive Inn. From that point on, only one block away from her home, no one could recall seeing Diana Rebollar.

  Officer Fahy reconvened his crew and contacted police department headquarters for more backup. Houston police officers, as well as more Missing Persons detectives, were on their way. A determined Fahy even put in a request for a helicopter to scan from the skies.

  The Salazars somehow managed to pull themselves out of their despair and quickly put together a Missing Persons flyer for Diana. A local businessman offered the use of his copy machine to make multiple copies of the flyer, and some of Diana’s young friends helped in distributing the leaflets around the neighborhood.

  At approximately 5:00 P.M., the Salazars received a terrifying phone call. A family friend of the Salazars’, and the mother of a young boy who was a classmate of Diana’s at Burrus Elementary School, believed she saw Diana in a gray car along with three men near her home. The little girl they believed to be Diana looked very scared. The Salazars feared the worst.

  Unfortunately, neither helicopter nor flyers were able to do the trick. Officer Fahy and others canvassed The Heights area for almost twelve hours. No one was able to locate Diana.

  CHAPTER 10

  Monday, August 8, 1994, 12:15 A.M.,

  1440 North Loop West,

  Houston, Texas.

  Ian Biel was a simple man. Well, boy, really. The eighteen-year-old had dropped out of school at Navarro Junior College, in Waco, Texas, and moved back home to Houston, where he scored work as a security guard for Hamm Security Services—the semi-graveyard shift, from 10:00 P.M. to 4:00 A.M. He was responsible for checking up on several buildings all over the city, every night. Some buildings he would simply drive by in his white Mazda pickup truck and survey the scene to make sure there were no vagrants hanging around urinating on the buildings or vandalizing the area. Other buildings he would survey, then get out of his truck with a flashlight and walk around the building. Still other buildings he would drive around, walk around, and then enter the building, where he would also check on specific suites.

  It was an easy job, but he got to wear a uniform and strap on a gun, which he felt restored a little bit of the dignity he lost by having to move back home.

  This particular night, Biel had been on his route for a couple hours. As usual, things were pretty uneventful, which was the way he liked it. At just after midnight he found himself at an abandoned three-story office building located at 1440 North Loop West, also known as Loop 610.

  Biel was creeped out by the building. First of all, it was located next door to the private, larger-than-it-looks, Adath Emeth Jewish Cemetery. The entire area had an eerie, off-kilter ambience to it. That, combined with the unsavory element that tended to populate the area at night—specifically, prostitutes who allegedly worked out of the Western Inn Hotel located next door and took their tricks behind the building for blow jobs, crackheads who used it to hide out and spark up, and intoxicated homeless people—did not excite Biel. Since it had so much potential for trouble, the security guard was required to get out of his truck, cover the perimeter, and take a peek inside.

  Not fun.

  Unbeknownst to Biel, the abandoned office building was located only two miles from the Spring Branch Dairy Queen, where Carmen Estrada’s body was found less than two years earlier.

  Biel pulled off the Loop 610 feeder road and into the building parking lot up a steep incline. He drove slowly in front of the building, shining his flashlight as he passed. He then made his way to the large parking lot in the back of the building, where he turned right. This was the area where he usually found the aforementioned trespassers engaging in unsavory activities and he would have to run them off. On this night he did not see anything out of the ordinary, so he continued to drive along the back side of the building until he came to the driveway area in the back southwest corner.

  As he turned the corner to the right, he spotted what looked like a skinny black woman lying on the ground. Biel assumed it was one of the area prostitutes who may have been beaten up by one of her customers. Biel stopped his car and exited, walked up to the seemingly unconscious person, stopped about three feet away, and drew his revolver. He was not sure if the trick may still be lurking in the shadows nearby. Once he determined that no one was in the vicinity, he radioed for help. First he called 911; then he called his boss.

  Upon further examination of the body, he realized that emergency services were not going to be able to help this person. She was already dead.

  The first patrol officers on the scene were Art Mejia and Steve Castro. They were soon joined by an ambulance and also members of the local television media. Officers Mejia and Castro took control and kept the came
ramen far away from the body. After cordoning off the area, the patrol officers followed correct department protocol and made a call to Homicide.

  * * *

  Homicide detective Robert E. “Bob” King was awoken from his peaceful slumber at 12:48 A.M., Monday, August 8, 1994, by the incessant, high-pitched ringing of his home telephone. The forty-one-year-old detective was a seventeen-year police force veteran, who transferred from Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) to Homicide nearly two years earlier.

  King started out on patrol on the evening shift. He then switched over to the night shift, where he focused on accidents, which he did for less than one year. He then returned to patrol at the central patrol station for the night shift, where he worked until January 1, 1988.

  After eleven years of patrol he then transferred to SWAT, where he worked for 4½ years.

  On September 12, 1992, he transferred to the Homicide Division of the Houston Police Department. Homicide was definitely his favorite assignment.

  Detective King had worked on a few high-profile cases, including the case of Michael Durwood Griffith, a former Harris County sheriff who was charged and convicted of killing Deborah McCormick in her flower shop. King and fellow detective Hal Kennedy’s successful police work was chronicled in Bill Cox’s Shop of Horrors (Kensington/Pinnacle, 1998).

  King was handsome and clean-cut, but most important, he was all business. He answered the call, darted up, and headed out the door toward the crime scene.

  King pulled his vehicle into the front entrance of the vacant office building at 1440 North Loop. He was instantly approached by Officers Mejia and Castro, who informed the detective that they believed the body might be that of a little girl from the neighborhood that had gone missing the day before. Detective King absorbed everything and walked toward the area where the girl’s body lay. When he came upon the little girl’s naked body, he did not flinch. He kept his steely reserve in check. The sight before him would have turned a weaker man into a quivering bowl of jelly—a response no one would have mocked.