MURDERED: Lesly Palacio from Las Vegas

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Speaker 2 Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers, And I'm Britt.

Speaker 2 And the story I have for you today is about how a young woman's night out with a trusted family friend turned into a nightmare, leaving her family still searching for answers nearly four years later as the gears of justice finally start to turn.

Speaker 2 This is the story of Leslie Palacio.

Speaker 2 Even though Leslie Palacio is 22, she lives at home with her parents and four sisters.

Speaker 2 And that's just how they like it because Leslie is the heart, soul, and backbone of the house, the one who makes sure everyone is fed and safe. But on August 28th, 2020, Leslie needed a night out.

Speaker 2 According to an episode of In Pursuit with John Walsh about the case, her mom tells her she shouldn't leave the house that night. It's already too late by the time she's even asking.

Speaker 2 It's like inching up on midnight. And every parent knows nothing good happens after midnight.
But every parent also knows that the kids they make those rules for think that they know better.

Speaker 2 So Leslie decides that she's going to go out anyways.

Speaker 2 She's been DMing with one of her longtime friends, Eric, and around midnight, she leaves with him to go up to like, you know, hit up some of the nightlife in town.

Speaker 2 And while most places would be starting to close down in like a couple of hours, they don't live in most places. They live in Las Vegas.

Speaker 1 Oh, nothing's closing.

Speaker 2 Right. Now, all of this makes Leslie's older sister, Corelli, nervous.

Speaker 2 She is actually out of the house, but she's been in contact with Leslie the whole night, and she's not feeling great about Leslie going out alone with Eric.

Speaker 2 But based on an article by Kathlyn Newberg for the Las Vegas Review Journal, Leslie's more of the rule follower of the two, always making sure to text their parents while she's out.

Speaker 2 So what happens is Leslie agrees to text Corelli throughout the night to let her know where she is, what she's doing, just so someone in the family like knows she's okay and has tabs on her.

Speaker 2 Like this is like a little bit of a crime junkie thing, right? Right. Sister pact is made.
And so far, Leslie's keeping up with her end of the bargain. Corelli stays up late texting with her sister.

Speaker 2 She even sees Leslie post some photos from the bars that she's at with Eric on Instagram throughout the course of the night. And she knows Leslie's drinking.

Speaker 2 I mean, she's told her as much, but she isn't worried about her even getting home because Leslie says that Eric is sober.

Speaker 2 So Leslie keeps her sister posted as they hop from bar to bar, nothing to write home about or cause concern in any of the messages.

Speaker 2 But then at 4.40 in the morning, now it's the 29th, Leslie sends this slightly ominous text message. She tells her sister that she has something she needs to tell her, but she doesn't say what.

Speaker 2 I mean, I know. Corelli texts her back just a minute later to probe.
And right away, that little text bubble comes up like Leslie is typing back. And then the dots just disappear.

Speaker 2 So Corelli tries calling her sister, goes straight to voicemail, and she's thinking like, okay, her phone must have just died. She's been out all night.
She's been using her phone, texting, whatever.

Speaker 2 She's going to text me and tell me what happened in the morning.

Speaker 2 And so she falls asleep, but she doesn't get a good night's rest because just a few hours later, she finally does hear from someone, but it's not her sister, Leslie.

Speaker 2 It's her mom asking, where is your sister? Now, Corelli's mind goes right to that last text message that she got. I have something to tell you.
But there still aren't any more messages from Leslie.

Speaker 2 And when she tries to call Leslie again, her phone is still going straight to voicemail, now hours later. So Corelli rushes home and admits to her mom that Leslie did go out that night.

Speaker 2 She knew about it. But before they jump to any kind of worst case scenarios, one of the first things Corelli does is try to get in touch with Eric's sister to see if Leslie's at their house.

Speaker 1 So she knew this guy. He wasn't just some like rando from Instagram.
Right.

Speaker 2 No. So like I said, they knew each other, but their families have actually known each other for years from church.

Speaker 2 And Eric still lives at his home with his parents and siblings too, just down the street from Leslie and her family. So Corelli's probably thinking, okay, Leslie stayed over there with them.

Speaker 2 She was probably drinking. She probably fell asleep, overslept, whatever.
She feels safe with that family. But when she calls, Eric's sister doesn't answer to ease her worries.

Speaker 2 So by around 10 a.m., Corelli and her mom decide to just drive over to their house to see what's going on. And at first, they knock on the door.

Speaker 2 No one answers, which is odd because Eric has this big family. Someone surely has to be home.
But they decide to just leave and come back an hour later at around 11.

Speaker 2 And this time, when they pull up to Eric's driveway, they see something stranger than they ever expected.

Speaker 2 Eric's mom and sisters are like moving furniture and cleaning supplies out of the house as they roll up.

Speaker 1 Uh, no.

Speaker 2 I know. And listen, Leslie's family still doesn't jump to any terrible conclusions.
They know this family, the Ibaras, really well. So Leslie's mom just kind of pulls up.

Speaker 2 She asks, you know, where is Eric? But then the answer she gets totally changes the mood because Eric's mom tells her that she doesn't have any business asking where her son is because he's an adult.

Speaker 2 I'm sorry, f that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Where is Eric? He was the last person with your daughter. Like, I want to know where he is, where she is, why you have a mop and buckets.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's almost exactly what Leslie's mom asks. But the Ibarra family says they don't know where Leslie is.

Speaker 2 So Leslie's family has no choice but to leave and just to start looking for answers themselves. Now, Corelli immediately starts searching.
She's calling hospitals.

Speaker 2 She's trying to reach anyone she can who might know where Leslie is, you know, friends of hers, people who might have run into her, but she gets nothing.

Speaker 2 And so she keeps trying to call Eric too, but it sounds like his phone is going to voicemail or turned off or she knows that somehow, like she's not getting through to him. No ringing, nothing.

Speaker 2 Corelli even tries to track down Leslie's phone using find my iPhone, but it doesn't even show up anywhere. So now she is really worried and she calls the police to report Leslie missing.

Speaker 2 They tell her to wait, see if Leslie comes back later in the day.

Speaker 2 Corelli hopes that they're right and Leslie is going to walk through the door any minute, but day turns to night and there is still no sign of Leslie.

Speaker 2 So the next morning, August 30th, she reports Leslie missing again. And this time, police do take the report, but they're still not convinced that she's in danger.

Speaker 2 Knowing both Eric and Leslie are nowhere to be found, they assume that the two ran away together, even though Leslie's family insists that she wouldn't have gone anywhere without telling them.

Speaker 2 I mean, she was texting her sister the entire night, for God's sake. And by the way, Eric and Leslie weren't dating or anything.

Speaker 2 Like Corelli could always tell that Eric had a thing for Leslie, but she didn't feel the same way about him. Like they were just friends.

Speaker 2 So she's like, Leslie's not taking off in his truck and leaving her family for some guy she's not in love with, you know, like head over heels in love with. Right.

Speaker 1 And where is Eric's truck now?

Speaker 2 Well, police need to figure that out. So they put in a request that day for Leslie's cell phone records to try and kind of retrace her steps, hopefully find her safe.

Speaker 2 But then on August 31st, police get another call, one that really puzzles them because it's from Eric's mom, and she's calling to report Eric and his dad, Jose,

Speaker 2 missing. She tells police that Eric came home sometime between 8 and 9 a.m.
on August 29th after going out with Leslie, and that he was really on edge.

Speaker 2 And by the afternoon, whatever was bothering Eric was like eating away at him. And he told his mom he just wanted to leave the house.
And he did, walked right out of the door. His dad went after him.

Speaker 2 And that was the last, apparently, they saw of both Eric and Jose.

Speaker 2 So now police are wondering if three people, Leslie, Eric, and Jose, went missing together. Could they all be in danger? And if Eric was at home by morning, then where is Leslie?

Speaker 2 Police release Leslie's photo and description to the public saying that they've ruled out a kidnapping, but they add that Leslie might be in distress or need some kind of medical assistance.

Speaker 2 And even though her phone is still off and they can't use her cell phone location to figure out where she is, they can at least pull up some historical data and track that path.

Speaker 2 Like I said, the one she took the night she went went missing starting from when she left her house and so using that they're able to pin down all of the places that she and eric went to which allows them to go then collect footage from each place and actually like see her there and from that they can see that leslie and eric started the night at a casino they pull up in eric's white ford f-150 truck and at 1 50 a.m they leave the casino in the same white truck the two then go to a bar at 2 15 and i can't find any sources that tell us when when they left that bar, but police do find footage of Leslie and Eric arriving at a third and final place at around 4.30 in the morning.

Speaker 1 And 4.40 is the last text to her sister, right? Right.

Speaker 2 And even though she never responded to Corelli's text, footage does show Leslie leaving the bar with Eric at around 5.50 a.m.

Speaker 2 So as ominous as those like disappearing dots were, police know that nothing happened to her then. Maybe her phone really did just die because she's leaving at 5.50.

Speaker 2 And now police need to know whether or not she went back to Eric's house with him that morning or what. I mean, it's less than 15 minutes away from the last bar that he and Leslie went to.

Speaker 2 So what detectives do is they go canvas his neighborhood, asking whether anyone has cameras that point to the Ibarra house. And sure enough, someone does.

Speaker 2 So police look at that footage and they see Eric's truck pulling up just after 6 a.m. I mean, this is like fitting completely with the timeline.

Speaker 2 He gets out of the driver's seat, walks around, helps Leslie out. She's a little uneasy on her feet from the drinks at night.
So he's kind of like holding her up, leading her inside, but she is alive.

Speaker 2 She's like, you know, walking with him. And he leads her into the house and everything on the street is quiet, but not for long.

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Speaker 2 On the neighbor's footage, police see Eric come back out of the house about 30 minutes after he and Leslie went inside. But this time he's not with Leslie.
He's with his dad, Jose.

Speaker 2 And the two of them are dragging something down the driveway, something that is body shaped and wrapped in bedsheets. And then Leslie is never seen coming out of the house again.

Speaker 2 So Eric and Jose handled what police believe is Leslie's body like she was a piece of furniture, just straight up like shoving her into the passenger side of his truck.

Speaker 2 And then once she's in, Eric climbs into the driver's seat. He speeds away while his dad hoses down the driveway.

Speaker 1 And where are Eric and Jose now?

Speaker 2 Police don't know, but they know that they're definitely not missing or in danger. But right now, Leslie is the priority.

Speaker 2 So if there's even the smallest chance that she might still be alive, they got gotta find her. They gotta get her help like yesterday.

Speaker 2 So the neighbor's camera footage gives police enough evidence to get a warrant to search the Ibarra house.

Speaker 2 And inside, their top concern is what they find in Eric's room because the sheets have been completely stripped from his bed.

Speaker 2 And they notice this small bloodstain on Eric's mattress that they swab and then send to the crime lab. So now police release a second report to the public.

Speaker 2 And this time they say that they do think foul play played some kind of role in Leslie's disappearance. And they also turn the case over to the Las Vegas MPD's homicide unit.

Speaker 2 And it's at this point that Eric and Jose are no longer missing people, like they're fugitives on the run. Yeah.
But finding them is like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Speaker 2 So they pull out all the stocks, like pull on all their resources. And the one that hits is a license plate reader that like pulled on Eric's truck, basically, like it got flagged or whatever.

Speaker 2 And so they pull the footage from the reader and they see that Eric went back toward his house at around 10 a.m. on August 29th.

Speaker 2 Though it doesn't seem like he ever actually went back to his house, just like towards that general direction.

Speaker 2 So there seems to be a little bit of conflicting information between Eric's mom's statement to police and then the actual evidence, like camera footage. I don't know.
But either way.

Speaker 2 From there, police start working backwards to track his route.

Speaker 2 And based on the road that he was driving on, police know that he could only have been coming back from one of two directions, either from the Mount Charleston area or from the Utah-Arizona border.

Speaker 2 But that's like a freaking huge area for police to search. I mean, hundreds of square miles.

Speaker 2 But detectives get lucky yet again when one of them finds surveillance video from a gas station about 40 miles north of Las Vegas that shows Eric pulling off the freeway toward the Valley of Fire State Park.

Speaker 2 Now, on that same video, 20 minutes after, they see see Eric's truck driving in the opposite direction, this time with mud on the tires.

Speaker 2 So they know that Eric went off the road at some point in those 20 minutes.

Speaker 1 So really, they're only looking at the distance he could travel within the 10 minutes from the gas station.

Speaker 2 I mean, maybe even less, because I mean, if you assume that he stopped to remove Leslie from the car, you'd have to account for at least a minute or two for him to get out, take her out of the truck.

Speaker 2 And that's assuming he did nothing to conceal her. You know what I mean? So

Speaker 1 the time and the radius gets even smaller. Right.

Speaker 2 So police time this out and they like got their stopwatches out, whatever, accounting for the time that it would take for him to drive off the road, hide the body, get back in the car, drive away.

Speaker 2 And even then, they're still working with a lot of desert here. And with that narrow timeline, they start a grid search of the area.

Speaker 2 Every single hour counts in this heat because the longer it takes, the more likely it is that evidence could wither away. And it takes until September 9th.

Speaker 2 That's when police find Leslie's body hidden in a bush about 2,500 feet off of a dirt road. Eric didn't bury her.

Speaker 2 So after nearly two weeks of exposure to the intense heat, her body is in a very advanced state of decomposition. I mean, to the point that she's almost mummified when they find her.

Speaker 2 And they also notice that Leslie is missing the pants that she had on and all of the security footage that they saw.

Speaker 2 And they end up finding those jeans in a bush a few feet away from where they found her, along with drag marks showing that Eric must have let her heels drag as he was pulling her into the bush.

Speaker 2 And even though she's still wearing her underwear, like it's on all wrong.

Speaker 2 According to a detective's grand jury testimony, her quote, leg was through the waist hole and then the waist was in a leg hole. Like, so you've got the, you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 Like the yeah, it's like turned around. Yeah.

Speaker 2 And to me, that seems like evidence that Leslie may have been sexually assaulted, even though an autopsy would struggle to actually find evidence of that because of just how badly decomposed she was.

Speaker 2 And I mean, because of that, they can't determine a cause of death during her autopsy. So that ends up getting listed as undetermined.

Speaker 2 But police are sure that this is a homicide case, especially once the blood sample taken from Eric's mattress is determined to be Leslie's blood.

Speaker 2 Now, based on the evidence that they gather, police seek warrants for Eric's arrest on one count of open murder and destroying and concealing evidence, and for Jose on charges of destroying and concealing evidence, along with harboring, concealing, or aiding a felony offender.

Speaker 2 Now, they release Eric and Jose's photos to the public, officially naming Eric as their main suspect in the case, along with a license plate number for his truck.

Speaker 2 And that is when police get a tip from California. They learn that after dumping Leslie's body, Eric and Jose drove to California and spent the night with relatives.

Speaker 2 Now, there's conflicting reports on what exactly happened next because one place I found says that Eric left his truck with a cousin who then drove him and Jose across the border.

Speaker 2 Another place says that Eric's relatives refused to help him. But either way, it seems like Eric and Jose cross the border and make it into Mexico.

Speaker 2 But they do leave the truck behind because that's actually found at the border.

Speaker 2 So while police work to hunt their fugitives down in another country now, they still work stateside to kind of build their case against Eric and Jose for when they get them back.

Speaker 2 And by now, they've gotten access to Eric's cell phone records and they see this thing that ends up being really important.

Speaker 2 They see that he called someone from the Valley of the Fire area on the morning of the 29th.

Speaker 2 So police go question that person who is a friend of Eric's and what he shares with them is straight up full body chills. This friend got a call from Eric at around 8 a.m.

Speaker 2 that morning and Eric was straight up frantic. He's telling him he he needed help right away.
This friend was like, okay, well, like, I mean, what do you need, man?

Speaker 2 And Eric's like, do you remember that favor I asked you to do?

Speaker 1 What favor?

Speaker 2 So that's the thing. This favor wasn't like a direct ask.
And this was like weeks before Leslie died, but the friend did remember.

Speaker 2 And so I guess what happened was that Eric and his brother had run into this guy on his lunch break and they sat down at his table and Eric was drunk, like pretty gone.

Speaker 2 And to be fair, I don't know exactly what time of day this was. Like a lunch break might not necessarily be at noon, whatever.
But either way, Eric and his friend are talking.

Speaker 2 And he asked this friend if he would do him a favor if he ever needed it. And the friend's like, okay, yeah, sure, like whatever.
And then they move on. That's it? That's it.

Speaker 2 So again, it didn't seem ominous then, whatever. But fast forward to this morning on the 29th, and Eric is trying to call in that favor, like out of nowhere.

Speaker 2 And this friend asked him, okay, like, well, then what do you need, Van? And Eric's like, I need you to bring me gas.

Speaker 2 And the friend's like, okay, why do you need someone to bring you gas? Like, just go find a gas station. Right.
But Eric starts getting really cagey. He's like avoiding the question.

Speaker 2 So his friend asked him a few more times, like, why do you need me to go do this? And finally, Eric said, I don't want to be seen on camera getting the gas, which is like all the red flags. Yeah.

Speaker 2 So this friend asked Eric where he was. He's like asking this a few times.
And Eric admitted that he's in Utah. And then the friend asked him one more time.

Speaker 2 Okay, like, but why are you needing the gas? And then Eric just went straight cold and said, I killed a bitch.

Speaker 2 And what struck this friend wasn't even what he said, the confession of it all. It was just how calm Eric was when he said it.
And for that reason, the friend honestly at first didn't believe him.

Speaker 2 But Eric was dead serious and he said it again. And this time he added that the body was in the backseat of his truck.

Speaker 2 And at this point, the friend wasn't sure what to believe, but he was freaked out enough to tell Eric that he wasn't going to help him out and he needed to basically get off the phone.

Speaker 2 But Eric wouldn't stop asking him to come. So this friend asked him point blank, like, if this is true, why are you even like telling me? Why are you risking telling anyone that this happened?

Speaker 2 And Eric said, there is no risk because he had a burner phone. But this friend was like, listen, you messed up by telling me all of this.
And that is when Eric finally hung up on him.

Speaker 1 And this friend only reported this when the police questioned him?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it seems like it. I don't know why.
I'm going to assume it's because he was afraid of being implicated somehow, or I don't know if he really didn't believe him.

Speaker 2 I mean, he had to have believed him enough to not go give him gas.

Speaker 1 But the thing that sticks out to me the most is Eric already had a burner phone.

Speaker 1 I mean, spoiler alert, that backfired, but having that plus like way earlier asking this friend to like do a favor for him, like it feels like there's some kind of plan here, right?

Speaker 2 I know, I know. But I mean, at this point, with Eric and Jose still in Mexico, this is all speculation.

Speaker 2 So using this information, police work with federal and international partners to bring Eric and Jose to justice abroad. And almost five months after Leslie's death, police get an unexpected call.

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Speaker 2 Clark County investigators find out that on January 19th, 2021, Jose turned himself in to border protection officials. So he gets extradited back to Clark County.

Speaker 2 And when he's back in Vegas in an interrogation room, he gives authorities a truly unbelievable version of events.

Speaker 2 Basically, he says that on August 29th, Eric came home and he was acting pretty weird.

Speaker 2 So Jose decided out of the blue that they should just take this father-son trip to Mexico because his son's acting weird.

Speaker 1 Hold up. Is he not confessing?

Speaker 2 Oh, no. He's telling them they just went on a spur of the moment little trip together.

Speaker 2 Because listen, he doesn't know about all of the footage that police have.

Speaker 2 So they let him just like tell this lie. And they're like, okay, like, is that your final answer? Cool.
Now, here, take a look real quick at what we have.

Speaker 2 And when he sees that they have video of him helping Eric drag Leslie's body out of the house, that's when he lets up. And he then starts telling another story.

Speaker 2 He says that he was up early that morning in the garage, getting ready to take his wife to church when he hears Eric pull up to the house, get out of the car with someone else.

Speaker 2 Of course, we know that someone else is Leslie. Now he says he hears them go upstairs and he just kept working or doing whatever he's doing in the garage.

Speaker 2 And then about 30 minutes later, he says Eric comes downstairs shirtless, dragging Leslie's body down on sheets behind him.

Speaker 2 He's freaking out, Eric is, saying that he had to do something with the body, but he refused to tell Jose what happened.

Speaker 2 So Jose decided that they needed to get Leslie's body out of the house before the rest of the family woke up so that they wouldn't be implicated.

Speaker 1 But weren't his wife and daughters like cleaning up the crime scene?

Speaker 2 Well, according to Leslie's family, that's what it looked like to them. But Jose insisted that they weren't destroying evidence.

Speaker 2 And he even tried to say that the reason he hosed down the driveway, which they have video of him doing, was because after helping Eric put Leslie's body in the trunk, he was like, oh, I remember about this HOA letter I got about our yard needing to be cleaned.

Speaker 2 So he's like, perfect time to do it since I've got nothing else to do, which is like, roll your eyes.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, like, your son brings the lifeless body of a girl down from his room and you're like, sure, I'll help you load this up in the car and then clean off the driveway and then head to church.

Speaker 2 It's like unhinged. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And like, did Eric ever say how Leslie died?

Speaker 2 That's a great question because they had lots of quality father-son time on that run or that little trip they talk about, right?

Speaker 2 But apparently, or at least according to Jose, Eric refused to give him any details. All he hinted at was that Leslie was drinking a lot that night and she possibly overdosed.

Speaker 1 But Jose saw her body, didn't he?

Speaker 2 He says that when he saw Leslie lying on the bed sheet, he didn't notice any injuries on her body or even any blood or anything suspicious on the sheets.

Speaker 2 But he does say that she was only dressed in a shirt and her underwear were pulled on awkwardly. Okay,

Speaker 1 let's say Eric is telling the truth and she overdosed.

Speaker 2 Like, wouldn't toxicology prove that?

Speaker 1 There's that. And then why wouldn't you just call 911?

Speaker 2 Right. So, yes, and yes.
So, to answer the first question, toxicology tests were delayed because of the COVID backlog. And if they were ever completed, I actually haven't seen the results reported on.

Speaker 2 In this kind of cases we work, this is like one of the newer ones. I just saw a comment from the coroner's office saying that there aren't any tests still pending.

Speaker 2 So I don't know whether or not they've ruled anything in, out, whatever.

Speaker 2 So the other thing, so Jose says Eric left without telling him when he would be back. He just said that he was going to, quote, destroy the body.

Speaker 2 So Jose went to his daughter's apartment and Eric showed up there that afternoon acting weirder than even when he left, if that's possible.

Speaker 2 He was like making threats about taking his own life or killing Jose. Then he was rambling about people who were going to kill him and then the rest of their family.

Speaker 2 And when Jose heard this, he decided that it's going to be best for everyone if he got Eric out of the house, away from the family.

Speaker 2 And so that's when he says he decided to gather all the money he could from the house, drove Eric to California and then into Mexico.

Speaker 1 So, I mean, the million-dollar question is, where is Eric now?

Speaker 2 Well, Jose claims that they got into Mexico by bus, but then when Mexican federal agents boarded the bus to like run checks, they both panicked and split up.

Speaker 2 So his story is that he hasn't seen Eric since.

Speaker 2 Liar. Yeah.
And apparently he's like, I have no idea where he's at now. So like, I'm turning myself in, but like, haven't seen my son pretty much since we left.

Speaker 2 So police are still looking for Eric when a grand jury indicts him and Jose in February of 2021. A judge issues an arrest warrant for Eric and they set Jose's bail at $100,000.

Speaker 2 By June, Eric is still in the wind and Jose pleads guilty to destruction of evidence and accessory to murder. He says he takes responsibility for what he did and he apologizes for his actions.

Speaker 2 And Jose does end up getting the maximum sentence of two years in prison, which is a little bit insane. But if that makes you mad, do you want me to get your blood like fully boiling?

Speaker 1 I mean, let me guess. He's already out.

Speaker 2 He got released after only eight months. What? Even though there is no early release stipulation in his sentence.

Speaker 2 I guess he got credit for some like programs he did in prison and like just got out early.

Speaker 1 And like, I know like you can't make sentences or charges on this, but I can't get over the fact that they knew Leslie. She's someone that they've known and knew for years.

Speaker 2 For a long time. I mean like between 10 and 15 years that their families knew each other.
So to your point too, right? Like your son comes down with a body and it's like another girl you know.

Speaker 2 You know her family. You saw her grow up.

Speaker 1 I mean, she's 22.

Speaker 2 Oh. And if it was an accident, why are you covering this up? Like call the police like you said.
It is unbelievable.

Speaker 2 Now, after Jose was sentenced, the DA's office called on lawmakers to escalate these kinds of crimes from misdemeanors to felonies because it's a misdemeanor.

Speaker 2 But it's too late for Leslie and her family who feel like justice hasn't been done for her, especially because at this point, when Jose is going through all of this, like Eric is still free by November 2023, he's still at large.

Speaker 2 And police end up posting him as the focus of a Fugitive Friday social media campaign that they do.

Speaker 2 But weirdly, and I don't know exactly why this is, the flyer says that he's wanted for a probation violation and it doesn't mention murder at all.

Speaker 2 So I don't know if like they didn't want to scare people. I don't know if they thought people would turn him in more easily, if it was a probation violation.
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 2 It also says that Eric was last seen in Durango, Mexico, but. I don't know how they know that.

Speaker 2 There's no like specific date for that sighting either, but clearly they're like getting some kind of insight or tips or whatever. So 2024 rolls in.

Speaker 2 This year that we're recording this, January, February, March, the summer starts to pass.

Speaker 2 And then on July 30th, 2024, police announce that Eric's arrested in Mexico after years of working with federal and international agencies to track him down.

Speaker 2 And right now, Eric is in custody while the extradition process plays out. Like as we speak.

Speaker 1 How long will that take?

Speaker 2 It's based on the U.S.'s treaty with Mexico, and it can be a pretty complicated process. Like the U.S.

Speaker 2 has to put in a request through its diplomatic channels, and then the Mexican foreign ministry has to review the case and the evidence to make a decision.

Speaker 2 And it can take anywhere from a few months to quite literally years. But I mean, what I know is the U.S.
and Mexico do have a good working relationship on this.

Speaker 2 Like a few hundred criminals have been extradited from Mexico in the last decade or so. But there's a little bit of a wrinkle to all of this.
So to extradite someone to the U.S. from Mexico, the U.S.

Speaker 2 has to agree not to seek the death penalty or even a life sentence because those punishments are unconstitutional in Mexico, where he is.

Speaker 1 Which would be like the baseline sentences for a murder in the U.S.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I feel like there's still so much we just don't know about this.

Speaker 2 Like, I know.

Speaker 1 Why did all this happen?

Speaker 2 I don't know. Like, to what you said earlier, there's like something about this that does feel planned, right? The burner phone, the asking for this favor, like having someone you can call.

Speaker 2 Like, was it always about Leslie? Would he have done this to someone else? Did he do this to someone else?

Speaker 1 Yeah, did he already know how to do this?

Speaker 2 Right. I mean, this case is such a strong reminder of our crime junkie rules.
Like you never really know anyone ever.

Speaker 2 And you should always trust your gut because Corelli remembers that there was always something off to her about the way Eric Eric acted with her sister, Leslie. Like he was obsessed with her.

Speaker 2 But of course, just because someone acts a little strange, that doesn't mean you'd believe they were capable of murder, especially when you have a close relationship with them and like their whole family.

Speaker 2 And Leslie not only trusted Eric, she trusted his family who were in the house the morning Eric did something or whenever whatever happened happened.

Speaker 2 But that whole family betrayed that trust, especially Jose. In Nevada, a person directly related to an offender, offender, like a parent, can't be charged as an accessory to the crime.

Speaker 2 Even though Jose got the maximum sentence the state allows, Leslie's case is inspiring lawmakers to actually take a second look at those existing laws, which is at least like one bright spot that's coming out of this.

Speaker 2 The prosecutor's office is going to still have to take this to trial if and when Eric does return to the U.S. And I'm sure they are still trying to build as strong of a case as possible.

Speaker 2 So if you or someone you know has information about Leslie Palacio's case, please contact the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department homicide at 702-828-3521.

Speaker 2 Or if you want to remain anonymous, you can call Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555.

Speaker 2 Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

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