Rosa Medina

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Speaker 6 A hunter in hill country stumbles upon a shocking scene.

Speaker 13 She was nude and there was a bag overhead.

Speaker 15 The first thing came in my mind was being so close to the border. You know, there was cartel.

Speaker 6 Investigators' antennas quickly go up.

Speaker 13 His first comment was that he did not kill her.

Speaker 14 There is something suspicious about him.

Speaker 6 But an unexpected twist reveals a decades-old romance.

Speaker 16 It was during high school that she fell in love with her.

Speaker 17 They kept coming back to each other.

Speaker 6 Behind the devotion, investigators find a single-minded killer with a deadly plan.

Speaker 7 She promised a life.

Speaker 4 I mean, a wife.

Speaker 18 Kids.

Speaker 17 In 2019, the technology to really take a deep dive into these phones had advanced.

Speaker 19 It opened up a very, very deep and painful moment.

Speaker 20 I was able to rebuild the web pages, deleted text messages, phone calls.

Speaker 17 The house of cards started to collapse.

Speaker 6 A hundred miles from San Antonio, Edwards County, Texas is worlds away from city life.

Speaker 17 It's very, very sparsely populated, open land, sagebrush, desert,

Speaker 17 really out in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 17 And it's mainly, you know, ranchers and hunting leases.

Speaker 6 Labor Day weekend, 2012. On On the afternoon of September 2nd, an emergency call comes in to the Edwards County Sheriff's Department.

Speaker 17 The Sheriff's Department received a 911 call from some guys that were out at a hunting lease.

Speaker 18 This is basically a big ranch that was split up into multiple tracts of land for the purpose of hunting.

Speaker 6 The caller, 45-year-old Mark Bauer, makes a frantic report.

Speaker 18 One of my guests, Tommy, went to go check all our pig traps that we had set on our place.

Speaker 18 The next thing I know, he came back to camp and he said, there's a there's a dead body up there.

Speaker 18 So I got my cell phone and called it into the sheriff's department and they told us to just hang tight at camp and sheriff would come out.

Speaker 17 The first responders were the Edwards County Sheriff's Department along with the Texas Rangers.

Speaker 6 Officials find Mark and the other two hunters, 30-year-old Tommy Darity and 38-year-old Troy Ryder.

Speaker 18 As soon as they pulled in, they said, who all has been up there?

Speaker 18 And Troy said he was up there. And my guest, Tommy.

Speaker 14 When the sheriff got to the camp, They asked general questions if I saw anything out of the ordinary up there. At the time, I was still in shock.

Speaker 18 They asked us to take them up there to show them.

Speaker 4 So we went up

Speaker 18 all the way up to where the body was.

Speaker 14 The body was just off the dirt road and it was right there in the in the bar ditch area.

Speaker 13 There was a woman that was found that was nude. There was a bag overhead.

Speaker 18 They said, okay, y'all can all go back to your camp. We'll come see y'all when we're done up here.

Speaker 6 Investigators carefully remove the plastic bag from the victim's head.

Speaker 13 It was clear that she had been shot.

Speaker 17 The gunshot wound was to the back of her head.

Speaker 17 The blood had not coagulated yet and that suggested that the body had not been there for very long.

Speaker 13 The fact that she was nude and there was a bag over her head, it was definitely not a hunting accident. It was a homicide.

Speaker 17 If you're dealing with a naked female, then there's always going to be the thought of a sexual assault.

Speaker 6 But a new discovery throws this theory into question.

Speaker 12 The deputies found the clothing separate from the body, but very near.

Speaker 12 Looking at the clothing, it was consistent with somebody receiving a head wound and

Speaker 4 bleeding downward.

Speaker 12 all the patterns they matched so whoever shot her took her clothes off after she was shot the picture starting to form how this crime played out was a planned execution

Speaker 6 with the clothing deputies locate a wallet and an Arizona driver's license

Speaker 12 they found a wallet with a military ID with the name of Inez Santa Cruz

Speaker 12 They call it a presumptive ID at the scene because the picture looks like her.

Speaker 6 Investigators turn the victim's body over to the medical examiner for an official autopsy.

Speaker 6 Then, they head back to the camp to get more information from the three hunters.

Speaker 15 This is all privately owned land.

Speaker 14 The main road leads you into your property. That's where you would have the campground.

Speaker 17 These men brought out their four-wheelers, their guns. They had set hog traps.
So they were out there just boys being boys. They were all separated and interviewed individually.

Speaker 6 Tommy Darity explains that he and Mark were at the camp for the holiday weekend.

Speaker 6 The evening before, things were winding down when Troy Ryder, a guest at a neighboring camp, drove up around 7 p.m.

Speaker 18 I realized it was Troy, who I'd met twice before, because he's been a guest of another property owner out there.

Speaker 18 He said, well, he was just out driving and we're on the ranch. Comic courtesy, anybody that shows up, we offer him a beer, a Coke, a soda, whatever.

Speaker 18 Welcome to hang out with us, eat dinner with us. That's just the way we are.

Speaker 6 Dinner turned into a raucous night of partying.

Speaker 14 I was the only sober one there.

Speaker 4 I don't drink.

Speaker 17 They were pretty hammered.

Speaker 6 The party wrapped up around 3 a.m.

Speaker 14 Troy wanted to leave.

Speaker 15 He had a lot of stuff to do and he was going to stay at his friend's property about a mile or so away from Mark Bauer's property.

Speaker 14 And Mark Bauer told me to grab his keys so he doesn't drop drunk.

Speaker 6 Troy relented and agreed to stay the night.

Speaker 21 He slept in his suburban.

Speaker 18 The next morning, morning, I guess about eight o'clock maybe, he got up.

Speaker 14 I gave him his keys back. He left.

Speaker 14 And then I want to say about an hour after he left, I decided to go see if he made it to his camp.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 14 I got up to his property. That's when I kind of crested the hill and I saw the suburban.

Speaker 6 According to Tommy, Troy was outside his vehicle looking at something on the ground.

Speaker 14 As I got closer on the ATV, I could tell that it was a body.

Speaker 14 And I saw him right outside of his vehicle looking down.

Speaker 15 The first thing that came in my mind was being so close to the border, you know, there was cartel.

Speaker 15 So I kind of panicked and told Troy, jump on the back of my ATV.

Speaker 14 I said it about two or three times, and he wasn't moving.

Speaker 14 So I made the decision to get out of there as quick as possible.

Speaker 15 I went back to our camp, Mark Bauer's property, and told him that I found a dead body.

Speaker 18 I called it into the sheriff's department, and Troy came in his suburban after that back to camp.

Speaker 6 When investigators speak with Troy, they ask if he knows anyone by the name of Inez.

Speaker 17 Mr. Ryder said that he did not know Inez.
He had just been out shooting and just happened to see this body out in the desert.

Speaker 6 But it's what Troy says next that strikes detectives as odd.

Speaker 13 He kept saying that he did not kill her, which I don't think anybody necessarily asked him that.

Speaker 6 After Troy's interview, Tommy pulls one of the investigators aside.

Speaker 14 I explained to him that I was listening to the comments that Troy was saying to the sheriff. Everything that he was saying

Speaker 4 was just a little bit off, talking about how she was laying.

Speaker 14 He just was not answering the questions correctly.

Speaker 12 He was probably the most nervous of the group to the point where at some point he had to go and get some beer to calm his nerves after the interviews.

Speaker 14 We sat around there kind of still in shock of what was going on. There was a lot of what-ifs.

Speaker 15 I know that I slept with my handgun under my pillow that night.

Speaker 6 Coming up, disturbing details from the autopsy.

Speaker 17 The picture's starting to form how this was a planned execution.

Speaker 6 A grieving sister shares a concern.

Speaker 8 He showed up at my sister's and he said, I just wanted to see you.

Speaker 6 Texas authorities are investigating the shooting death of a woman suspected to be 27-year-old Inez Santa Cruz.

Speaker 17 They did interview everybody at the scene, and they all all denied ever meeting Inez.

Speaker 6 After the witness interviews, investigators get word that the autopsy confirmed the ID as Inez.

Speaker 17 The cause of death was two gunshot wounds to the back of the head.

Speaker 17 It suggests that she was shot in cold blood while she was facing away from the shooter.

Speaker 6 The toxicology report reveals another clue.

Speaker 17 And Inez's system was benzodiazepam.

Speaker 17 Taken properly in low doses, it's an anti-anxiety medication. But in very high doses, it puts somebody to sleep and a very, very hard sleep to the point of being unconscious.

Speaker 6 With Inez positively ID'd as the victim, Texas investigators must now notify her family in Arizona.

Speaker 8 About six something in the morning, I got a knock on the door, and it's an officer. And his words were, Did Inez Santa Cruz live here? And I said, She does.

Speaker 8 And then he gives me the news: you know, we found your sister in a rural area. And I'm like,

Speaker 4 What do you mean?

Speaker 8 I'm like what happened where's Rosa

Speaker 8 and he looks at me and he takes out his notepad and he's like what do you mean?

Speaker 6 Erica says she thought Inez was with her childhood friend Rosa Medina.

Speaker 8 I told him Inez is out there because she had an event to attend with Rosa.

Speaker 17 Inez's sister said that she had driven Inez to the airport on Saturday, September 1st of 2012.

Speaker 6 Erica says she didn't hear from her again, but had planned to pick Inez up from the airport in a couple of days.

Speaker 8 My sister, you know, was found dead. And I'm like, was there a shooting? Like, what happened?

Speaker 8 What is going on?

Speaker 6 Inez Santa Cruz was born on February 13th, 1985, in Nogales, Arizona.

Speaker 16 Inez and her sister were to piece in a pod. They thought they were twins.
I had them very close together. I am the oldest.

Speaker 8 She was the middle child and three, four years older than my brother.

Speaker 16 Inez was a natural athlete. Whatever they put her to play, she would play and she would play it good.

Speaker 6 In high school, Inez excelled at basketball and bonded with her teammates, especially Rosa Medina.

Speaker 16 Rosa, I met her in high school. I really loved her.
She was a nice little girl, respected us very much.

Speaker 6 When Inez's teammate Rosa had issues at home, the Santa Cruz family welcomed her into theirs with open arms.

Speaker 8 She was just part of the group that hung out with my sister, and she she lived with us for a while.

Speaker 6 Eventually, the friendship between Inez and Rosa blossomed into romance.

Speaker 16 It was during high school that Rosa fell in love with Inez.

Speaker 16 I would bluntly say, Rosa, do you like Inez? And she said, of course I like her. I love her.

Speaker 6 But by the end of high school, the relationship had shifted back to friendship.

Speaker 8 They tried it out and it just didn't work out.

Speaker 8 But my sister was one of those who, you know, I'm always here for you if you, you know, ever need anything.

Speaker 6 By the fall of 2012, Inez was looking to the next chapter, nursing school.

Speaker 16 That was her plan.

Speaker 19 We were gonna go together.

Speaker 16 I was gonna try and finish my RN and then she was gonna do her anesthesiology.

Speaker 6 With her eyes on a career, Inez joined the Navy.

Speaker 16 Inez was stationed all over the place.

Speaker 16 She'd get these awards, and I found them. And I go, and why didn't you tell me? You know, she never bragged about anything.

Speaker 8 After she got out of the Navy, my sister got an amazing job at UMC. She was a surgical tech there.

Speaker 19 So she was super excited.

Speaker 6 But all of that changes on September 2nd, 2012, when Inez is found dead in a remote corner of Edwards County, Texas.

Speaker 12 We found out that she was supposedly flying into San Antonio on the 1st of September to visit her friend, Rosa Medina.

Speaker 6 Born in Mexico in 1987, Rosa moved to the U.S. before starting grade school.
Unlike Inez, Rosa's home life was anything but stable.

Speaker 20 Her mother got pregnant at a young age and she raised her in Arizona. She was kind of a handful growing up.

Speaker 8 She said she had nowhere to go, so she stayed with us for a good while.

Speaker 6 Following graduation in 2003, Rosa moved to Texas for a fresh start with family.

Speaker 16 She just said she didn't like her mom. She only liked her grandma.
So she had to go back to Texas to where she was living with a grandma.

Speaker 6 Though their romance didn't pan out, Rosa and Inez stayed in touch over the years.

Speaker 17 In Texas, eventually, Rosa Medina had children, but even when Rosa was in other relationships, she didn't want Inez to be with other people.

Speaker 8 I think Rosa always

Speaker 8 wanted something more.

Speaker 8 But the person my sister is, it wasn't like, oh my god, you like me. We gotta cut off this relationship.
It was, no, like we, you know, we can be friends.

Speaker 16 Rosa was living a normal life, posting pictures on Facebook of her and her daughters. And she was doing photography.
That was her job.

Speaker 6 In late August 2012, Rosa told Inez that she had booked a job photographing a wedding.

Speaker 13 Inez said that she would come babysit the children while Rosa shot the wedding.

Speaker 6 But on September 2nd, the weekend of the event, Inez's body was found in a remote area of Edwards County, Texas.

Speaker 8 At that point, I just thought, did she suffer?

Speaker 19 Like,

Speaker 8 what happened? Where's Rosa?

Speaker 8 Maybe there was an accident or something. Like I didn't.
My mind was just going crazy.

Speaker 6 Rosa's safety isn't the only thing called into question. Investigators also wonder how Inez ended up in Edwards County, four hours away from Midland.

Speaker 12 It was like someone just dropped her out of the sky and she landed, which kind of just didn't make sense.

Speaker 6 When asked who might have been at odds with Inez, Erika says there's only one person who comes to mind, Marty Chavez.

Speaker 13 Marty Chavez was in the Navy as well, and he was sweet on Inez.

Speaker 6 The two became close while they were stationed at the same naval base.

Speaker 8 I don't know if they actually dated or if they tried something,

Speaker 8 but Marty was in love with my sister.

Speaker 19 I don't know exactly what she

Speaker 19 felt or what he would tell her.

Speaker 8 There was a couple of times he showed up that my sister's like, What are you doing here? Like, I told you I was busy this weekend.

Speaker 8 He said, I just wanted to see you. And she's like, Yeah, but I said, No.

Speaker 6 Coming up, a romantic entanglement gets complicated.

Speaker 22 Okay, I don't think love trying to something going on. Oh, I don't.

Speaker 6 And chilling footage surfaces of Inez's final hours.

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Speaker 6 After finding Inez Santa Cruz shot to death in a remote Texas hunting camp, investigators are trying to confirm Rosa Medina's safety while looking into a new lead gleaned from Inez's family.

Speaker 12 There was a man that was interested in Inez romantically. We identified him as Marty, but he was going to be a person we were going to have to talk to.

Speaker 6 Investigators locate Marty's superiors in the military.

Speaker 12 He was nowhere even in the state of Texas during the time of the murder, so we quickly eliminated him.

Speaker 6 Next, Texas Ranger Roger Dixon focuses on finding Inez's friend, Rosa.

Speaker 12 The family gave us the information to contact Rosa. I called Rosa and she answered.

Speaker 12 I started discussing Inez with her. I told her about the murder and I basically asked her, you know, what she knew about it.
She was in tears.

Speaker 17 She said that there had been talk of Inez coming to visit Rosa over Labor Day weekend, but Inez had lost her debit card and couldn't get the money to pay for a plane ticket.

Speaker 17 Rosa said Inez had told her, hey, I'm not going to be able to come.

Speaker 20 So a subpoena was issued to Southwest to find out that she was on night flight.

Speaker 6 Investigators asked Rosa to meet them at the Del Rio DPS office for an in-person interview.

Speaker 22 She told you she wasn't going to be able to come like Thursday, right?

Speaker 25 Yeah, Thursday, that's when she texted me. That she wasn't going to be able to come up.

Speaker 6 When asked for her whereabouts during the time of Inez's murder, Rosa doesn't hesitate.

Speaker 17 Rosa had been at a concert in San Antonio at the time.

Speaker 17 Rosa also provided photographs to law enforcement showing her and her kids at this concert.

Speaker 6 Investigators ask Rosa if she knows any of the hunters who found Inez's body. To their surprise, she says yes.
She knows Troy Ryder.

Speaker 6 In fact, they met and just started dating about three months earlier.

Speaker 17 She said that she had a romantic relationship with Mr. Ryder, that she met Mr.
Ryder every Saturday for lunch at the mall.

Speaker 22 Was he jealous of you?

Speaker 22 No, he doesn't want to get married.

Speaker 25 He's not jealous.

Speaker 22 You're sure?

Speaker 22 Really?

Speaker 22 Because I have a hard time seeing a coincidence of Ness coming down from Arizona not knowing Troy and Troy finding her dead at the place where he hunts.

Speaker 22 I'm thinking love triangles, something going wrong.

Speaker 4 I don't know. Oh, I don't.

Speaker 22 Well, that, you know, I wasn't there. Okay.

Speaker 22 So

Speaker 22 that's what I'm wondering. What the heck's going on here?

Speaker 17 The way that Rosa responded was,

Speaker 17 I don't know why he would have met Inez.

Speaker 6 Before she leaves, investigators ask Rosa if they can take a look at her phone.

Speaker 17 You would expect to see a lot of calls and text messages between

Speaker 17 Rosa and Inez, but there were not a lot.

Speaker 17 That indicated to law enforcement that Rosa had deleted some items.

Speaker 22 We downloaded your phone with your consent, and once it's downloaded, I'll get it back to you.

Speaker 6 They release Rosa and circle back to Troy Ryder, the first person to discover Inez's body, who also happens to be Rosa's boyfriend.

Speaker 12 I knew that if Inez flew into San Antonio, there's probably one of only two ways she could have gotten to that location. And one of those ways has a Border Patrol checkpoint.

Speaker 12 I contacted a friend of mine there and sent him the license plate. And probably within 30 minutes to an hour, I received several photographs and it showed Ryder in his truck with a small female.

Speaker 12 I zoomed in and looked just like Ines.

Speaker 6 On September 7th, investigators pay a visit to Troy's home in San Antonio. He sticks by the story he gave on the scene, denying any prior knowledge of Inez.

Speaker 6 He does, however, admit to knowing Rosa.

Speaker 13 Rosa and Troy, they had just recently met at the strip club.

Speaker 9 He was a client.

Speaker 12 Rosa, who's claiming to be a photographer, I found that she was actually a dancer at a men's gentleman's club.

Speaker 6 Investigators press on. They confront Troy with the photos from the border checkpoint.

Speaker 22 Nothing. I just like bracket.

Speaker 6 Troy claims the woman was a hitchhiker. Though the story is flimsy, it's not enough for an arrest.
Troy is released.

Speaker 6 Days later, investigators receive the flight manifest from the San Antonio airport.

Speaker 17 He knows she was actually on the airplane. Law enforcement didn't review a video from San Antonio International Airport.

Speaker 13 The video showed Inez and showed Troy.

Speaker 13 It just shows that they were together prior to her being killed. That was a huge deal.
It seemed like it took some convincing by Troy to get her to agree to go with him.

Speaker 13 She could tell that something wasn't right.

Speaker 17 At this point, law enforcement had the surveillance video from the airport and the Border Patrol checkpoint video showing Mr. Ryder.

Speaker 6 Though loose ends remain, investigators now have enough for an arrest warrant.

Speaker 6 On September 13th, 2012, authorities follow Troy to a restaurant in San Antonio, Texas, and sit down to try and get a confession.

Speaker 20 See her?

Speaker 22 Yes. That's a big crap.

Speaker 22 You say so.

Speaker 20 Pretty fuzzy, but that's her.

Speaker 21 Who's that?

Speaker 18 See her.

Speaker 13 Investigators showed Troy some of the digital evidence they had, at which time he shut down on him. He lawyered up.

Speaker 4 You want an attorney? Yeah.

Speaker 6 All right, we'll wrap this up, okay?

Speaker 7 Hey, put your hands on the wall. We got a warrant for your arrest.

Speaker 17 Mr. Ryder was charged with capital murder and was facing either the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 12 During that timeframe, Ranger Lewis was able to get a search warrant of Ryder's vehicle. In the search, he sees Troy's gun.

Speaker 6 With Troy behind bars but not talking, investigators are left with one very important and unanswered question.

Speaker 17 The only connection between Inez and Troy Ryder in this tragic, senseless killing is Rosa Medina.

Speaker 17 And she continued to maintain her innocence.

Speaker 6 Almost three months pass. Then investigators get a phone call from Troy's attorney.

Speaker 17 The house of cards for Mr. Ryder started to collapse.

Speaker 17 So Troy Ryder was facing potentially the death penalty. Through negotiations between his attorneys and the district attorney's office, he ended up giving a full confession.

Speaker 6 Coming up, Troy reveals a wicked plot.

Speaker 21 She didn't care how.

Speaker 15 She wanted her gone and out of her life.

Speaker 6 And new accusations bring new questions.

Speaker 21 She says Penez started making threats to him. She was scared because she didn't want to lose her kids.

Speaker 6 Three months after investigators arrest 28-year-old Troy Ryder for the murder of Inez Santa Cruz, his attorneys reach out to prosecutors.

Speaker 12 We got a confession out of, and there was a plea agreement to keep him from getting the death penalty.

Speaker 6 On December 4th, 2012, Troy sits down for an interview.

Speaker 17 He very quickly implicates not only himself, but also Rosa Medino.

Speaker 21 She didn't care how. She wanted her gone and out of her life.

Speaker 7 Those are her words.

Speaker 5 Yes. I mean, and

Speaker 27 you're clear that she means death.

Speaker 4 Yes.

Speaker 13 Rosa had approached Troy about

Speaker 13 killing Inez.

Speaker 21 Weeks prior to the murder, she says Inez started making threats to her that if she didn't be with her, she was going to tell her family what she was doing as in working at the gentleman's club.

Speaker 21 Rosa was scared because she didn't want to lose her kids, but she didn't want to be with her.

Speaker 20 Um, the gun that you used was my 22.

Speaker 21 That rifle that we collected? Yes.

Speaker 6 For Troy, there was another, more enticing reason to help Rosa.

Speaker 26 Rosa promised him a life. I mean, a wife, kids, preferred family.

Speaker 6 According to Troy, the day before the murder, he met Rosa at the mall food court for their weekly lunch date.

Speaker 1 She then handed me...

Speaker 21 It was like

Speaker 21 a blue package.

Speaker 6 Rosa told him the package contained sleeping pills.

Speaker 17 Rosa had another client who gave Rosa some drugs. It was benzos.

Speaker 5 Talking about the pills.

Speaker 21 I mean, is that the conversation Walmart would kill her by doing this? She has just said she didn't care how.

Speaker 27 Just did not want her recovering and in hospital run.

Speaker 6 She told Troy that Inez would be arriving on a flight to San Antonio later that day. And together, they came up with a plan.

Speaker 17 The plan was for Troy to pick Inez up at the airport. Rosa instructed Troy to crush these pills up and to put them in iced tea.
Rosa knew that Inez liked to drink iced tea.

Speaker 21 I went over to the airport.

Speaker 21 How I knew what she would look like was she had shown me a picture.

Speaker 21 I recognized her, come off, I walked over, I met her, I told her, I asked her, is your name Inez? She says yes.

Speaker 21 I told her, you're supposed to come over to the land with us. Rosa's over there taking pictures.
And she says, okay, she got in the truck and I says, there's a nice tea for you.

Speaker 6 Trusting that Troy was Rosa's assistant, Inez accepted the ride and the tea.

Speaker 21 She started dozing in and out, so we drove for a while, hoping that the pills would take effect.

Speaker 12 She passed out, fell asleep, but when they got to the campsite, she was awake, groggy, but still awake.

Speaker 6 Troy told her that Rosa had stepped out for supplies and would join her later. He then left Inez alone, hoping that she would fall asleep and never wake up.

Speaker 17 He spends the night drinking, riding four-wheelers, and the next morning, Troy goes back.

Speaker 12 He came back to the trailer thinking he would find

Speaker 12 Inez

Speaker 12 unconscious or dead, overdosed with the drugs, but found her quite alive.

Speaker 17 Her cell phone died because there was no electricity, and she was livid.

Speaker 6 In order to explain what happened next, investigators take Troy back to the crime scene.

Speaker 7 Troy,

Speaker 18 explain what happened right here at the crime scene, if you would.

Speaker 28 Told her that I was going to give her my phone to call Rosa because she said her phone was dead, no juice.

Speaker 28 We drove up. I got out of the driver's seat.

Speaker 12 So, Ryder told her, you have to stand on that rock and point that way and you can get signal.

Speaker 28 I hand her my phone.

Speaker 21 She walked up.

Speaker 28 I then grabbed the rifle, put her back to me, and that's when I fired the first shot.

Speaker 28 She fell.

Speaker 28 She was gurgling.

Speaker 28 I went back. I

Speaker 28 loaded one more round

Speaker 28 and put her down on the ground and and shot her again in the back of the head.

Speaker 12 They wanted to make it look like the cartel had got her and ripped her and killed her. So he took her clothes off.
He also put a trash bag over Ines's head.

Speaker 6 His efforts were interrupted when hunter Tommy Darrity stumbled upon him.

Speaker 6 Troy's confession fills in the blanks, but it isn't enough to arrest Rosa.

Speaker 17 Texas law is very clear in that the statement of a co-actor, in and of itself, is not sufficient to secure a conviction.

Speaker 6 Seven months after Inez's body is found, Troy is convicted of first-degree murder.

Speaker 17 The negotiated plea agreement was for 75 years.

Speaker 4 Mr.

Speaker 17 Ryder will not be eligible for for parole until he has served 30 years of that sentence.

Speaker 6 For Inez's family, Troy's sentence is bittersweet.

Speaker 16 I got pretty sick because he wouldn't arrest her. I was having faint spells.

Speaker 16 I couldn't live thinking that this woman was living a normal life after what she had done.

Speaker 6 But whether or not Rosa will go to jail isn't all Inez's loved ones struggle with. They want to know why.

Speaker 8 She mentioned to Troy that my sister was going to blackmail her, you know, saying she was a stripper, whatnot. But in all honesty, my sister could care less.

Speaker 6 Was the real motive unrequited love?

Speaker 17 Rosa lived in San Antonio and wanted Inez to move to San Antonio to be with her, but Inez ended up finding a good job as a scrub nurse in Tucson, Arizona, where she lived, where her mother lived, and eventually made the decision not to move to San Antonio.

Speaker 16 I think that's what triggered all this: is that when Inez didn't move,

Speaker 16 I think it made her mad.

Speaker 6 As years pass, Rosa goes on with her life.

Speaker 20 She moved on, she got a new job, she was working as a manager at Home Depot, she had a live-in partner.

Speaker 6 And hard proof of Rosa's involvement in Inez's murder continues to elude investigators.

Speaker 6 But in June 2019, everything changes when investigators are able to look at old evidence through a new lens.

Speaker 17 The technology to really take a deep dive into these phones had advanced, and investigators started looking at it some more.

Speaker 20 The last analysis of the device was detrimental to the case. So it's actually kind of a really cool thing that technology can be your best friend or your worst enemy at the end of the day.

Speaker 6 Coming up, will that day finally come?

Speaker 8 I thought was here to help, and it doesn't seem that way.

Speaker 6 New technology cracks the case.

Speaker 13 It proved that Rosa did know Inez was coming to Texas.

Speaker 6 Seven years after the 2012 murder of Inez Santa Cruz, Trigger man Troy Ryder is behind bars. But the alleged mastermind behind the crime, Rosa Medina, remains at large.

Speaker 6 But new life is brought back to the investigation when old evidence is examined in a new way.

Speaker 20 They brought me Rosa's iPhone data that had been given to the Texas Rangers when they interviewed her initially.

Speaker 20 And I was able to rebuild the web pages, deleted text messages, to be able to look at them as you would have seen them in their native format.

Speaker 6 The analysis yields what investigators have been waiting for.

Speaker 17 A week before the killings, Rosa was doing searches for

Speaker 17 date rape drug,

Speaker 17 slipping a Mickey, how to make untraceable calls.

Speaker 20 The final thing that we found was a text that said, I'm boarding my flight a more. I'll see you soon.

Speaker 13 It had been deleted, but with the new technology, it was extracted.

Speaker 20 That was exceptionally important when it came to showing that Rosa knew Inez was coming in.

Speaker 17 By June of 2020, the case against Rosa Medina had gotten much,

Speaker 17 much stronger.

Speaker 12 Within a month after we got the last forensic

Speaker 4 stuff, we went to the restaurant.

Speaker 6 On June 29th, 2020, authorities locate Rosa at her home in San Antonio.

Speaker 13 When we first made contact with Rosa, we tried to explain to her that we were trying to finish up the case and close it out. She was still acting very nice.

Speaker 6 At the station, her demeanor changes.

Speaker 19 My daughter was here to help, and it doesn't seem that way. You've opened up a very, very deep and painful

Speaker 10 moment.

Speaker 20 She started to get more upset. She was not willing to talk with any of us after that.

Speaker 7 I'm

Speaker 7 there,

Speaker 8 no evidence because I didn't do anything.

Speaker 7 I'm sorry, Rosa, I can't talk to you.

Speaker 4 You've ended the interview.

Speaker 6 Investigators reveal they have a warrant.

Speaker 4 Hey Rosa, you're under ref for work.

Speaker 4 No, you have this all along.

Speaker 4 You have this all along.

Speaker 19 Why is this happening?

Speaker 6 Prosecutors are confident in their case, but there are other factors they must consider.

Speaker 17 I believe fully that Miss Medina would have been convicted, but we also have to weigh the wants and the wishes of the victim's family.

Speaker 16 I don't want to go through court. I don't want to hear all this stuff.
This is not going to bring my daughter back.

Speaker 6 Authorities honor the family's wishes and approach Rosa with a plea bargain.

Speaker 17 She agreed and entered into a negotiated plea bargain for manslaughter.

Speaker 12 I was hoping that during that process she would, you know, give a confession in return for the leniency, but she never did.

Speaker 6 In April 2022, Rosa pleads guilty to the reduced charge of manslaughter and receives an 18-year sentence.

Speaker 13 I wished that she could have been sentenced longer than what she got, but we finally got her arrested and got her convicted.

Speaker 6 While it is comforting that Rosa is finally behind bars, there is little that can ease the pain of not understanding why.

Speaker 16 I wrote her a letter, but she's never responded.

Speaker 16 That's all I say is why, why?

Speaker 16 And I guess I'll go to my grave saying why.

Speaker 16 I see the world very temporary, very limited. I live in the moment, like my daughter taught me.
I'm very proud of the person she was.

Speaker 6 Troy Ryder is currently housed at Memorial Unit Prison.

Speaker 4 You will be eligible for parole in 2042.

Speaker 6 Rosa Medina is scheduled to be released in 2038. She will be 51 years old.

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