Speaker 1: It was Father's Day twenty eleven when Charie or Tease,
Speaker 1: walked into her parents' home and found the bodies of
Speaker 1: her mother and father.
Speaker 2: They had been shot in the head, and it had occurred
Speaker 2: sometime earlier in the day.
Speaker 3: I just.
Speaker 4: The brutality was unspeakable.
Speaker 1: The hunt to find the killer would tear the community
Speaker 1: apart and devastate CHERI.
Speaker 5: I really do have hope this is going to get solved.
Speaker 1: My name is Sloan Glass. I'm a journalist who covered
Speaker 1: the Long Island serial killer, the Delphi, Indiana murders, and
Speaker 1: many other high profile true crime cases. And now I'm
Speaker 1: the host of American Homicide, a podcast where we take
Speaker 1: you across the country to investigate some of America's deadliest crimes.
Speaker 1: Will explore how these murders are shaped by their unique landscapes,
Speaker 1: and how these tragedies have shaped the fabric of these
Speaker 1: American communities forever. Today, we're in the tiny village of
Speaker 1: El Rancho, New Mexico, for part one of the Father's
Speaker 1: Day Murders on American Homicide. As a note, this podcast
Speaker 1: contains subject matter which may not be suitable for all audiences.
Speaker 1: Discretion is advised. Let me paint a picture for you.
Speaker 1: Santa Fe, New Mexico, is called the city Different for
Speaker 1: its rich culture and diverse community. Native American ancestries blend
Speaker 1: with Spanish culture in a state with one of America's
Speaker 1: richest landscapes.
Speaker 6: Northern New Mexico in particular, it's a very unique place.
Speaker 6: It's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Alex Tomlin was a local TV news reporter who lives
Speaker 1: in the area.
Speaker 6: It has impeccable weather and the mountains are incredible.
Speaker 1: The region is home to natural hot springs and wild rivers.
Speaker 6: You can drive an hour north and go whitewater rafting,
Speaker 6: or you can go down to white Sands and enjoy that.
Speaker 6: But kind of on the outskirts of Santa Fe, you
Speaker 6: get a lot of the smaller communities.
Speaker 1: And one such place is the tiny village of El Rancho.
Speaker 1: The predominantly Hispanic community is about twenty miles from Santa
Speaker 1: Fe and is built around co op farming and churches.
Speaker 6: It's a lot of people who have kind of grown there,
Speaker 6: have families there, kind of all know each other.
Speaker 7: But it's also a desolate place.
Speaker 6: One of the things about New Mexico is it's so open.
Speaker 6: When you go to someone's home. Often they have a
Speaker 6: significant sized property. There's not neighbors very close.
Speaker 1: And even though the homes are all spread out across
Speaker 1: the desert.
Speaker 6: Everyone kind of knows each other. But there is an
Speaker 6: interesting dynamic here. As much as it's known for its beauty,
Speaker 6: is also known for the crime.
Speaker 1: The tragic murders on Father's Day twenty eleven would stretch
Speaker 1: the fabric of l Rancho to its limits.
Speaker 6: So June eighteenth, twenty eleven, seemed like any normal night.
Speaker 1: Shari or Ties had dinner plants with her parents, Lloyd and.
Speaker 6: Dixie Shari Orties. She lived on the property with the Ortizes.
Speaker 1: Her parents and brother lived in a large one story house,
Speaker 1: and Shari and her husband lived in an RV next door.
Speaker 1: Even though there's a fence around their spacious property, the
Speaker 1: family had an open door policy.
Speaker 6: Anyone could come in, have dinner at their table, or
Speaker 6: spend time with them. They were just kind of a
Speaker 6: good family in this community that was very tight knit.
Speaker 1: Lloyd or Teas was a man who loved to use
Speaker 1: his hands. He owned his own ceramic tile business. His
Speaker 1: craftsmanship turned up in homes and even luxury hotels all
Speaker 1: over northern New Mexico.
Speaker 6: He was an incredibly loving father, a hardworking man who
Speaker 6: provided for his family. His wife, Dixie.
Speaker 1: They sound like a perfect pair. Dixie was passionate about
Speaker 1: working with the elderly and the disabled. She was an
Speaker 1: activities director at a local retirement home, and she fostered
Speaker 1: children with special needs.
Speaker 6: They took in a child who had Shacken baby syndrome
Speaker 6: and adopted him as their own. Raise that child. Loved
Speaker 6: that child.
Speaker 1: That child's name was Stephen. Steven had special needs from
Speaker 1: his early life injuries. His brain never developed beyond that
Speaker 1: of a nine year old, but he matured into a
Speaker 1: young man that his family called the gentle Giant. He
Speaker 1: loved to play drums, ride his ATV, and fish with Lloyd.
Speaker 6: They were just really giving, loving people, burying northern New Mexico.
Speaker 6: Hard working, you know, love the land, loved the culture
Speaker 6: kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Since it was Father's Day, Sharie or Teas whipped up
Speaker 1: a plate of homemade enchiladas for dinner. It was her gift.
Speaker 1: Just before seven o'clock that evening, she took them and
Speaker 1: walked next door to her parents, even though it was June,
Speaker 1: white Christmas icicle lights Dill hung on the gutters of
Speaker 1: her parents' home. Inside, the walls were adorned with crucifixes
Speaker 1: and some of Lloyd's handmade tiles.
Speaker 6: Cheri said she walks in and realizes something's very wrong.
Speaker 6: She found her mother in bed. Her mother's head was
Speaker 6: pretty damaged that someone maybe had shot her. She then
Speaker 6: went into the kitchen area and found what she thought
Speaker 6: was her father on the kitchen floor. The body was
Speaker 6: just so impacted by what was used against them. There's
Speaker 6: these two bodies, there's blood everywhere. She goes screaming out
Speaker 6: of the house and for her husband. Again, they lived
Speaker 6: on the property, so it was pretty close.
Speaker 1: Serie's husband, Jesse, ran right over to investigate.
Speaker 6: Her husband then comes in the house and he realizes
Speaker 6: it's not her father on the kitchen floor, it's actually
Speaker 6: her brother, and that's when he starts searching around and
Speaker 6: finds her father out the side, right outside the back door,
Speaker 6: kind of in the field there.
Speaker 1: Lloyd's Bonnie was found on a cinder block path that
Speaker 1: connected the Ortiz back porch to their fenced in yard.
Speaker 1: He was face down, wearing only his underwear. His eyeglasses
Speaker 1: sat just inches away. Covering his head was some green
Speaker 1: shrubbery by now Cherie was on the phone onwards.
Speaker 3: What is your name?
Speaker 1: Cheri frantically told the nine on one operator that her mother, father,
Speaker 1: and brother were shot to death.
Speaker 3: I just and everybody shot in my brother and my mom.
Speaker 1: This was Scherie's second attempt at a nine on one call,
Speaker 1: Since Uri and her parents' homes were out in the
Speaker 1: middle of the desert, her cell reception was body. Imagine
Speaker 1: the panic, the fear that your call would drop again
Speaker 1: when you're trying to get emergency help for your family.
Speaker 1: And she didn't know where the perpetrator was or if
Speaker 1: they were still on the property.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, Oh my god, oh my god. I
Speaker 3: am freaking out. I can't even walk over there because
Speaker 3: I own service.
Speaker 1: And then there's another problem. Now Rancho is way off
Speaker 1: the beaten path, which delays the response time for law enforcement.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, you have to hurry.
Speaker 1: With no local police force of their own, the New
Speaker 1: Mexico State Police were dispatched to investigate.
Speaker 3: I can't believe they're already dead. I can't believe I
Speaker 3: didn't come check earlier this morning. Oh my god, Oh
Speaker 3: my god, oh my god. Why you know, because I
Speaker 3: didn't have money for a father's sacred but I didn't
Speaker 3: want to go until I finished. Could be a job
Speaker 3: up for him.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Charise stayed on the phone for nearly
Speaker 1: twenty minutes before officers arrived.
Speaker 4: Oh and started going, So.
Speaker 5: I kind of get thet I'm going.
Speaker 3: To watch the game and late to them. I'm my
Speaker 3: two nervous just sitting in my yard.
Speaker 2: My name is Paul Chavez. I was a member of
Speaker 2: the full Time Crimes Unit as an agent with the
Speaker 2: New Mexico State Police.
Speaker 1: The two hundred homicide cases Officer Chavez worked in his
Speaker 1: career didn't prepare him for what he saw inside the
Speaker 1: Ortis house.
Speaker 2: In this case, the magnitude of the violence evolved was
Speaker 2: the worst that I had seen in my career. The
Speaker 2: brutality was unspeakable. Chariotis had found her parents and her
Speaker 2: adopted stepbrother dead within the residence. She reported that they
Speaker 2: had been shot in the head, and it occurred sometime
Speaker 2: earlier in the day.
Speaker 1: It turns out that although chari said she didn't see
Speaker 1: who committed these murders, she did hear something.
Speaker 2: There was reportedly gunshots heard the previous night in the area.
Speaker 1: Now hearing gunshots isn't entirely unusual in New Mexico. But
Speaker 1: Cheri and her parents' homes sit on a dead end
Speaker 1: street in the rural New Mexico Desert. It's a remote
Speaker 1: area with unpaved roads and no nearby street lights. Their
Speaker 1: nearest neighbor is about fifty yards up the road. Inside
Speaker 1: the Orties' home, Officer Chavez and his team assess the situation.
Speaker 4: Once I enter into the residence.
Speaker 2: There is a master bedroom immediately to the left as
Speaker 2: you walk in, and that is where the first victim,
Speaker 2: identified is Dixie RTIs is in her bed and her
Speaker 2: nightgown under the blankets.
Speaker 1: Dixie was found clutching her pillow.
Speaker 2: Her upper extremities and her head is completely saturated in
Speaker 2: blood where she had sustained a parent trauma. From that bedroom,
Speaker 2: there's a drip trail which extends to the kitchen area
Speaker 2: where we have a second victim, a young man identified
Speaker 2: as Stephen Ortez.
Speaker 1: Stephen, her adopted brother, lay face down in a pool
Speaker 1: of blood, wearing only his underwear. Police noted that he
Speaker 1: took the brunt of the attack.
Speaker 4: This scene was absolutely brutal.
Speaker 1: Stephen was twenty one years old at the time of
Speaker 1: his murder, and based on his injuries, police believed that
Speaker 1: he tried to fight off the killer before ultimately losing
Speaker 1: that battle.
Speaker 2: The blood continued from that area out the back door,
Speaker 2: where the third victim, Loiter Tease, was found. Outside the
Speaker 2: back porch, there was a significant amount of bloodshed, indicating
Speaker 2: that he did sustain some massive trauma, and there was
Speaker 2: also shrubbery from a nearby bush that was covering his head.
Speaker 1: That's two bloody bodies inside the home and one outside.
Speaker 1: And then something else stood out to law enforcement.
Speaker 2: There was a small mayer I want to go on
Speaker 2: the property. It was fenced off and pad locked. They
Speaker 2: did have a medical marijuana card for Stephen for some
Speaker 2: of the medical conditions.
Speaker 1: He had, but none of the seventeen marijuana plants appeared
Speaker 1: to be disturbed. In fact, nothing seemed to be stolen
Speaker 1: or even out of place. On the kitchen table in
Speaker 1: plain View sat Lloyd's wallet containing hundreds of dollars.
Speaker 4: This did not look like a robbery.
Speaker 2: It looked like a case of anger, a lot of
Speaker 2: anger based on the brutality that occurred.
Speaker 1: It was a father's day to forget for residents in
Speaker 1: this tiny suburb, of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lloyd and
Speaker 1: Dixie Ortiz were pillars of the tight knit Aloranto community.
Speaker 1: They were quick to lend a helping hand to others
Speaker 1: in need. So who was angry enough to harm them?
Speaker 7: And why?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 1: Your teas lived in an RV right next door to
Speaker 1: her parents' house on the same property. Both home sat
Speaker 1: on a scrawling lot surrounded by hills in the dusty
Speaker 1: El Rancho, New Mexico Desert. On the evening of Father's
Speaker 1: Day twenty eleven, Shari walked into her parents' house and
Speaker 1: found her mother, father, and brother savagely murdered. Like many
Speaker 1: others in the community. Pastor John Truhio was in shock.
Speaker 5: I get a phone call. They call me PJ.
Speaker 8: Pastor John says, PJ, they found Stephen, Lloyd and Dixie dead.
Speaker 8: I said, what are you talking about? Was the cracks
Speaker 8: in what happened? He says, no, they're it seems like
Speaker 8: they were murdered in their home. You need to get
Speaker 8: down here right away. And as I drive up, the
Speaker 8: community is already showing up. The state police are there,
Speaker 8: and about that time Shari made her way out and
Speaker 8: she was just in tears. In tears and tears and
Speaker 8: it's just Pastor John. My family's dead. My family's dead.
Speaker 8: Somebody murdered my family. Somebody killed my family. How do
Speaker 8: you handle that?
Speaker 5: What do you do?
Speaker 8: I mean, can you imagine the emotional and physical and.
Speaker 5: Just spiritual distraught that you would face. Nobody can't prepare
Speaker 5: for that. I don't care. Nobody's prepared to walk into
Speaker 5: a scene like that, especially the daughter.
Speaker 8: The family was grieving and they were mourning. It's all Rancho.
Speaker 8: This isn't supposed to happen in a community like this.
Speaker 8: People are speculating that could this happened from the community.
Speaker 8: Did somebody come here from somewhere else? Was it a
Speaker 8: family member, was it a friend? Was it a robbery
Speaker 8: that went wrong? You know why?
Speaker 5: Why? It was like, okay, we need some answers.
Speaker 1: Since ol Rancho didn't have a police force of their own,
Speaker 1: the New Mexico State Police handled the investigation by mourning.
Speaker 1: The police still didn't know much.
Speaker 5: We're still insure as to what happen out there.
Speaker 4: The guys are still working.
Speaker 5: Its working very hard to determine what exactly happened, but
Speaker 5: at this point we still don't.
Speaker 8: Know how in the world. Could something like this happen.
Speaker 8: You know, one person dead, okay, but when there's three,
Speaker 8: it raises a lot, a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: Police believe that three victims were shot to death inside
Speaker 1: their home, but nothing appeared to be missing. Investigators wondered
Speaker 1: if it was a murder or a murder suicide. Officer
Speaker 1: Paul Chavez was one of the first responders.
Speaker 2: My role primarily is to process and document the crime
Speaker 2: scene and try and make sense of what occurred there.
Speaker 1: But the severity of the crime scene limited what he
Speaker 1: was able to do.
Speaker 2: You can't disturb the body much, and with the amount
Speaker 2: of bloodshed that was present, we weren't able to assess
Speaker 2: the wounds as well as we would like to have
Speaker 2: been able to so.
Speaker 1: Originally, the police believed all three victims were shot to death,
Speaker 1: but the results of the autopsies for each victim revealed
Speaker 1: something for him more personal.
Speaker 2: That these were in fact not gunshot wounds. There were
Speaker 2: actually lacerations that were penetrating with a blunt object.
Speaker 1: Clearly something was missing. When the police returned to the
Speaker 1: scene of the crime, they found a five pound pickaxe
Speaker 1: lying on the ground just over the fence of the
Speaker 1: adjacent property, and the pick axe contain bloodstains.
Speaker 2: What the pick axe did provide us was DNA from
Speaker 2: all three victims, so we unequivocally had our murder weapon. However,
Speaker 2: we were unable to forensically link a suspect to the
Speaker 2: pick axe.
Speaker 1: So what does that mean? A murder weapon with DNA
Speaker 1: of the victims but nothing to indicate a suspect.
Speaker 2: It could mean a number of things that maybe they
Speaker 2: were wearing gloves, or they covered their hands in some
Speaker 2: way or shape or form, and just sometimes the lab
Speaker 2: just can't find it. It's not a one hundred percent certainty
Speaker 2: that they're going to be able to find DNA when
Speaker 2: something is touched. There's a chance that we will, but
Speaker 2: it doesn't always work out that way.
Speaker 6: So the one thing about the Ortez murder was really
Speaker 6: the pressure on the police.
Speaker 1: Reporter Alex Tomlin covered the story for a local TV station.
Speaker 6: There was an incredible amount of pressure from that small
Speaker 6: knit community, but also the surrounding communities, and so there
Speaker 6: was a lot of pressure on them to get who
Speaker 6: did it, make it a clean investigation, and let's get
Speaker 6: this person behind bars. And I'm sure at times that
Speaker 6: pressure was overwhelming.
Speaker 1: The people of l Rancho couldn't shake the fear that
Speaker 1: they could be next.
Speaker 6: Nobody wants to think that they're going to go to
Speaker 6: sleep and somebody who's pick axed a couple and their
Speaker 6: son to death is going to come into their home next.
Speaker 1: They even refused to talk to TV reporters, not because
Speaker 1: they felt pastored, but they were fearful of their own safety.
Speaker 6: And that's the other terrifying thing. Think about the strength
Speaker 6: it takes to push that pick axe back multiple times
Speaker 6: and pick act someone to death. That is cold blooded,
Speaker 6: that is calculated. That is incredibly scary for a community.
Speaker 6: That person is dangerous. You know, when you can't easily
Speaker 6: tie up a case like this, when you can't say, oh, it's,
Speaker 6: you know, a scorn lover, or it's you know, a
Speaker 6: drug deal gone wrong, or different things like that, then
Speaker 6: it becomes a well, in my next you want to
Speaker 6: find who did this because you don't want the community
Speaker 6: looking at you and saying, what are you doing? Why
Speaker 6: aren't you protecting us? Why don't you have the answers?
Speaker 1: With no suspects a weapon and murder. Seeing free of
Speaker 1: any DNA, investigators started to look at the person who
Speaker 1: first discovered the bodies. That person was Shuri or Tisse.
Speaker 6: When something this horrific happens, the community wants answers and
Speaker 6: they want them quickly, right, So you want to be
Speaker 6: able to tie a nice bow on this thing and
Speaker 6: be done with it. And Sharen her husband seemed like
Speaker 6: that nice bow. They lived on the property. You could
Speaker 6: come up with a motive.
Speaker 1: The police wondered if Shari and her husband, Jesse knew
Speaker 1: more than they were saying, especially after they listened back
Speaker 1: to Shari's original limom uncle.
Speaker 6: She's very frantic in that nim of one call, as
Speaker 6: you can hear, she made some comments on that nine
Speaker 6: on one call about you know, they must have been
Speaker 6: shot because of how they looked.
Speaker 3: I just walked shot.
Speaker 6: It wasn't later until the Office of the Medical Investigator
Speaker 6: determined that actually they had been pick axed to death.
Speaker 8: And you have no idea who would have done that.
Speaker 3: Anybody around them. Oh my god, they were such good people.
Speaker 3: Oh the go my god, Oh my god, Oh my god,
Speaker 3: Oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 1: We have hurry, desperate and upset. Chari spent seventeen minutes
Speaker 1: on that nim on one call, but as investigators listened back.
Speaker 1: They zeroed in on a Commentari said, now listen closely
Speaker 1: to what Trei told the operator. So Scharie said her
Speaker 1: parents had been dead since that morning. How did she
Speaker 1: know that? And why didn't she call nine one one
Speaker 1: till seven that evening?
Speaker 3: I can't believe I didn't come checker here this morning.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Why
Speaker 3: you know? All because I didn't have money for a
Speaker 3: father's sake, gire, but I didn't want to go until
Speaker 3: I finished the pie and chub up for him.
Speaker 6: They one percent thought she was a main suspect.
Speaker 3: I can't believe this is happening.
Speaker 1: When Lloyd Dixie and Stephen Ortiz were brutally murdered in
Speaker 1: their l Rancho home, their daughter Sharie and her husband
Speaker 1: Jesse appeared to investigators to be the only people with
Speaker 1: motive and the access to execute such a violent crime.
Speaker 1: For months, Sharie and Jesse felt the and heard the whispers.
Speaker 1: Their pastor, John true Hio, tried to be the voice
Speaker 1: of reason.
Speaker 8: I think when you have to go through that, like
Speaker 8: Jesse answer, ree did? I think it was just a
Speaker 8: reassurance that said, listen, you.
Speaker 5: Know you need to do this. You need to go
Speaker 5: through this.
Speaker 8: Just cooperate with the state Police investigators, whatever you need
Speaker 8: to do, because it's just a process of elimination. They're
Speaker 8: looking for answers just as much as everybody else is,
Speaker 8: and they need a starting point somewhere. Just go through
Speaker 8: the process, answer the questions, be honest, be truthful, and
Speaker 8: let them eliminate you, and then they can move forward
Speaker 8: from there.
Speaker 2: So there were a number of red flags that required
Speaker 2: us to investigate share and justice to the fullest.
Speaker 1: State Police Agent Paul Chavez took the difficult line of
Speaker 1: questioning a mourning Shari.
Speaker 4: Could family gain from the death of the victim?
Speaker 2: Sure they kind of there is insurance insurance policies in place,
Speaker 2: or is there property of place?
Speaker 4: Is there is there.
Speaker 2: Something to be gained. That's definitely something that was going
Speaker 2: to be looked at.
Speaker 1: Investigators asked about Scheri's credit card debt and the fact
Speaker 1: that she didn't pay her car loans or even the
Speaker 1: rent on her RV, and then there was this. Schuri
Speaker 1: also told the investigators that she had removed eighty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: in cash from her parents' home, but she didn't tell
Speaker 1: this to police until three days after the murders, Jesse.
Speaker 4: And Sherry involvement couldn't be ruled out.
Speaker 1: Jesse and Suri told detectives that they were at a
Speaker 1: local casino on the night of the murders.
Speaker 2: But thought there was some conflicting statements between Shari and Jesse.
Speaker 1: The triple murder that rocked the close knit village of
Speaker 1: El Rancho turned friends into enemies, families into suspects.
Speaker 6: At the time, there was a lot of speculation about
Speaker 6: her and her husband and whether or not they had
Speaker 6: been involved in this crime.
Speaker 1: Alex Tomlin worked as a reporter for a local TV station.
Speaker 6: The case was a little bit cold at this time,
Speaker 6: and we got a call saying she's.
Speaker 7: Willing to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Shari was on the defensive and wanting to publicly clear
Speaker 1: her name, so she scheduled an interview with Alex.
Speaker 6: Scherie offered to show me the home where her parents
Speaker 6: had lived and had been murdered.
Speaker 1: Alex met Sharie at her home and interviewed her just
Speaker 1: steps away from where Lloyd, Dixie and Stephen were murdered.
Speaker 6: I remember distinctly being in the kitchen and we were
Speaker 6: talking about her brother Stephen, and you know when the
Speaker 6: autopsy came out, he had held about a dozen or
Speaker 6: so blows.
Speaker 5: I think about.
Speaker 6: Maybe seventeen blows. And I remember her talking to me
Speaker 6: about how he was such a big guy, that he
Speaker 6: was kind of a teddy bear, but he was such
Speaker 6: a big guy. And it's such a weird sensation. We
Speaker 6: were standing in someone's kitchen and you're seeing marks on
Speaker 6: the floor and you know their body had been there,
Speaker 6: and you know, she cried a lot during that interview, understandably,
Speaker 6: but really thinking about this young man coming out who
Speaker 6: didn't really have the cognitive ability to understand what was happening.
Speaker 6: You know, they're very much still a child kind of
Speaker 6: in a man's body, and to have that many blows
Speaker 6: to him. My only thought in that moment was he
Speaker 6: must have been trying to protect his parents. He must
Speaker 6: have been really scared. He must have really fought back, and.
Speaker 3: That was just so sad.
Speaker 6: It was so sad to think about those final moments
Speaker 6: and what that must have been like for him, either
Speaker 6: knowing that he was dying or knowing that something had
Speaker 6: happened to his parents. It was just really traumatic standing
Speaker 6: there and knowing this is where he died and he
Speaker 6: died in such a violent way.
Speaker 1: With the cameras rolling and like to ask Shari about
Speaker 1: the investigation.
Speaker 6: I believe they're going through it with tunnel vision, just
Speaker 6: specifically focusing on us in instead of the real people
Speaker 6: or I know it had to be people.
Speaker 5: How could one person do that?
Speaker 6: So it left this very weird sensation in the community
Speaker 6: where some people were still speculating other people really believed them.
Speaker 6: Why would they do this?
Speaker 1: Shari said her parents had life insurance, but she could
Speaker 1: not collect that money since she and her husband were
Speaker 1: considered suspects and without that money, Suri said they couldn't
Speaker 1: pay their bills and worried their homes would be foreclosed.
Speaker 6: So it was really this sense from her of trying
Speaker 6: to advocate for herself but advocate for her parents and
Speaker 6: her brother to say, I need to know who killed them,
Speaker 6: and at the same time, I need people to know
Speaker 6: it wasn't me. And so that was really what the
Speaker 6: conversation centered around.
Speaker 1: We could lose everything my dad worked so hard for.
Speaker 6: I actually saw like marks on the floor in different
Speaker 6: things like that where this had happened. It was a
Speaker 6: really horrific experience.
Speaker 4: Something has to give I really do have hope.
Speaker 5: I know this is going to get solt.
Speaker 1: With tears in her eyes, Shari then looked into the
Speaker 1: camera to try to clear her name and her husband,
Speaker 1: Jesse's as well.
Speaker 6: We had nothing to do with it.
Speaker 4: My god, that was my mom and Mike, my little brother.
Speaker 1: It was no secret that the two were being looked
Speaker 1: at in the triple murder. But were they that desperate
Speaker 1: for money that they would murder their own family. Paul
Speaker 1: Schavez investigated.
Speaker 2: If you don't investigate Justin and Shehrby to the fullest,
Speaker 2: you make a very easy argument for a defense attorney
Speaker 2: to create dowder in jury's mind.
Speaker 4: And that's exactly what have happened if we had not.
Speaker 2: Followed up on all of the red flags that came
Speaker 2: up during the course of the investigation.
Speaker 1: But as the investigation dragged on, Shari shifted the blame
Speaker 1: back on the state police. She claimed that they botched
Speaker 1: the investigation and said casino security guards or even children
Speaker 1: could have done a better job. Against the advice of
Speaker 1: law enforcement, Shari even set up a po box where
Speaker 1: people could anonymously submit information about who might be responsible.
Speaker 1: A year after the murders, the police promised a press
Speaker 1: conference to share some breaking news was on the case,
Speaker 1: but that press conference never happened.
Speaker 2: There was a lot of leads that came in that
Speaker 2: were followed off on, but none of them pouned out.
Speaker 1: A billboard even went up along a local highway with
Speaker 1: a picture of Lloyd Dixie and Stephen then offered a
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars reward for information, but still there were
Speaker 1: no arrests.
Speaker 2: That was the hardest part of this case for me
Speaker 2: was knowing that we have not been able to bring
Speaker 2: justice for this family.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just Shari who was pressuring the New
Speaker 1: Mexico State Police. Here's TV reporter Alex Tomlin.
Speaker 6: There was an incredible amount of pressure from that small
Speaker 6: knit community, but also the surrounding communities and pretty much
Speaker 6: all of the state saying you've got to find who
Speaker 6: did this. You could not take a family who more
Speaker 6: people said nice things about and have a more awful
Speaker 6: thing happened to them. I mean, they are bludgeoned to
Speaker 6: death with a pickaxe.
Speaker 1: Publicly, the police didn't reveal much about other potential suspects,
Speaker 1: but behind the scenes, it was a different story. Aside
Speaker 1: from Shari and her husband Jesse investigators interviewed numerous pupil Then,
Speaker 1: sixteen months after the murders, a local twenty three year
Speaker 1: old woman named Ashley Roibald got arrested. While she's in custody,
Speaker 1: she tells the police something astonishing.
Speaker 5: Is it okay to call you? Ashley?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 5: I understand that you know some details.
Speaker 1: I did it. Ashley tells detectives that she knows who
Speaker 1: killed Lloyd Dixie and Stephen Ortiz.
Speaker 6: It isn't until Ashley Roibald gets in trouble that all
Speaker 6: of a sudden she's willing to tell police what happened.
Speaker 5: I'll just let you go ahead and tell me the story.
Speaker 6: It was almost like the answer everyone had been waiting for. It.
Speaker 1: Ashley Roibald kept quiet for sixteen months. During that time,
Speaker 1: Shari juggled losing her mom, dad, and brother, well be
Speaker 1: looked at by everyone as a suspect, all while she
Speaker 1: could collect their life insurance money, and was scared she'd
Speaker 1: lose everything. But now, sixteen months later, Ashley was finally
Speaker 1: ready to.
Speaker 4: Talk, and this was the turning point on the investigation.
Speaker 1: But would anyone believe Ashley?
Speaker 6: There's things that kind of don't match up they're shifting stories.
Speaker 5: We just want the truth.
Speaker 1: They say. The wheels of justice move very slowly, and
Speaker 1: in this case that would prove to be an understatement.
Speaker 6: And I remember thinking, oh God, here we go again.
Speaker 6: This poor family has been through the ring error.
Speaker 5: I would have never suspected that it was going to
Speaker 5: come down to this.
Speaker 1: Find out what Ashley says really happened that night, and
Speaker 1: part two of the Father's Day Murders. That's next time
Speaker 1: on American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team
Speaker 1: by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's American Homicide Pod atmail dot com. American Homicide is
Speaker 1: hosted and written by me Sloane Glass and is a
Speaker 1: production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group,
Speaker 1: in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The series is also
Speaker 1: written and produced by Todd Gans, with additional writing by
Speaker 1: Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunny. Our associate producer is Kristin Melcurie.
Speaker 1: Our Ihearty is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing
Speaker 1: and mixing by Matt Delvecchio. Additional editing support from Nico Ruka, Tanner, Robbins,
Speaker 1: brit Roebashow, Dave Seya, and Patrick Walsh. American Homicide's theme
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