SAN ANTONIO – A prostitute whose terrifying encounter with a Border Patrol agent led to his arrest for the deaths of four women near Laredo testified against him Monday in a Bexar County courtroom.
Erika Pe?a is a key witness for the prosecution in the trial of Juan David Ortiz, whose trial was moved from Webb County after a change of venue was granted.
Ortiz is charged in the 2018 slayings of Melissa Ramirez, Claudia Anne Luera, Griselda Cantu and Jannelle Ortiz, who were all found dead with gunshot wounds within weeks of each other off Interstate 35 north of Laredo.
Pe?a, who testified that she gets paid to have sex with men, told jurors that she knew all the victims.
She testified that on Sept. 18, 2018, Ortiz picked her up on a street corner and took her to his house. She said that the defendant “wasn’t himself and was very nervous” prior to entering the house after she had mentioned the killings.
Pe?a told the jury that Ortiz was afraid that he was going to be asked to submit his DNA in connection with the death of one of the victims.
The witness testified that she started getting nervous and scared, and was vomiting “because she got this feeling” that “he was the one who was murdering.”
Ortiz then told her she needed some food and drove to a Circle K convenience store, where he parked his pickup truck behind an 18-wheeler behind the store, she testified.
Moments after telling Ortiz to take her back to the intersection where he originally picked her up, Pe?a said that he grabbed a gun and stared at her. A struggle began as she tried to get away.
“He pointed it right at my face,” Pe?a testified.
She then made a run for it.
“Someway, somehow, I took off running without my shirt,” she testified. “I took off running, I snapped.”
Pe?a said that she ran to the front of the store where she encountered DPS Trooper Francisco Hernandez, who was fueling his patrol vehicle.
Hernandez testified that Pe?a was in shock, hyperventilating, and scared and that she had been assaulted by someone named David. Hernandez then took her to a police station, where Pe?a told investigators about the assault that would eventually lead to Ortiz’s arrest.
Defense attorney Joel Perez tried to discredit Pe?a’s testimony by having her admit that she was a prostitute mainly to support her daily $300-$400 addiction to heroin and crack. Pe?a also admitted that a relative is caring for her child due to her drug habit.
Perez also brought up the fact that Pe?a said she is now taking methadone and asked her if she knew what it was for.
“Are you aware that methadone is synthetic heroin?” Perez asked her. Pe?a replied, “I know what methadone is … and it doesn’t trigger the need to use heroin.”
Perez also asked Pe?a if she was on drugs the night she ran up to the trooper, to which she replied, “I was high but I knew what was going on.”
The defense attorney brought up the fact that Pe?a previously testified in a pretrial hearing that Ortiz had pointed the gun at her chest, and not her face, as she had told jurors.
When Perez asked her if she was lying, Pe?a said, “never.”
Perez also asked her if she had been arrested for violent crimes, including an April 2019 incident where she assaulted a peace officer.
When Pe?a replied that she couldn’t recall the crime, Perez asked her, “you’re telling me that you don’t know what you were arrested for?”
The trial is schedule to resume at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday. KSAT 12 will be streaming the entire proceedings, from gavel to gavel, on KSAT.com, KSAT Plus and YouTube.
If convicted of capital murder, Ortiz faces life in prison without parole because prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty.
Learn more about this case by watching KSAT’s exclusive “Open Court: The Trial of Juan David Ortiz on KSAT.com, KSAT Plus or on KSAT’s YouTube channel.