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