The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer
On September 3, 2018, a passing motorist found the body of a young woman crumpled on the side of a dirt road just outside of Laredo, Texas. The discovery of Melissa Ramirez’s bullet-torn body was the start of a harrowing murder spree that confounded investigators and put the residents of the border town on edge. Over the next 12 days, investigators would rush to the scene of body after body, four in all. All the victims — Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Hernandez and Janelle Ortiz – were marginalized women struggling to make ends meet as sex workers. Investigators soon made a shocking discovery: All were shot by Juan David Ortiz, a supervisory agent and 10-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, who was sworn to protect the very people he preyed upon. The manhunt was on for Laredo’s first serial killer.
RICK JERVIS is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist with more than two decades of experience working at major publications.
Born in Miami to Cuban parents, he grew up in Miami’s Westchester neighborhood and attended Miami Southwest Sr. High, Miami-Dade Community College and the University of Florida.
Rick began his journalism career with The Miami Herald in the mid-1990s, reporting on such stories as the shooting death of fashion icon Gianni Versace and the perilous journey of Cuban immigrants across the Florida Straits. He was on a team that won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Journalism for a series on voter fraud in a Miami mayoral election.
He also worked at The Chicago Tribune before becoming the Baghdad Bureau Chief for USA TODAY in 2005. While in Baghdad, Rick took part in more than 20 military embeds, covered the trial and execution of Saddam Hussein, and wrote about the growing Sunni-Shiite conflict, the rise in sniper shootings by insurgents and the Green Zone suicide bombing. He also covered the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in southern Lebanon and the hotel suicide bombings in Amman. In 2006, Rick won USA TODAY’s prestigious Staffer of the Year Award.
Rick currently lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and two daughters, where he writes about the border, immigration and other topics.
THE DEVIL BEHIND THE BADGE is his first book.
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