-[Mitchell speaking] -[Ramon speaking]
[Ramon] Wow, this is wonderful memories.
Here I am with my three kids.
[woman speaking]
They love the waters, little fishes.
[Cris] Look at that. Clear water.
Like there's no other place I would rather be.
Look at this.
[Mitchell] You know, growing up, it was, it was always the same thing
It was always being together as a family and doing things.
[Cris] It was always a great time
when my parents were togethe
and when, you know, it's all five of us.
It was... it was... it was us five.
It seemed like everything was... was good.
[man speaking in Spanish]
[Mitchell] At no point do you think that
someone who comes to family parties
could actually come up with an idea to kill somebody.
[in Spanish]
I couldn't believe that a human being
would do something like this.
[narrator] It's August 1997 in Puerto Rico.
30-year-old Ramon Sosa
is on vacation with his family.
[Ramon] It was a wonderful vacation
and I think that was our first big vacation
that we took together with the kids.
[narrator] Ramon, his wife Dolores,
and their three children visit the home
of Ramon's cousin, David.
Six-year-old Mitchell and four-year-old Cris
posed for photographs.
-[Cris speaking] -[Dolores speaking]
[narrator] Six-month-old baby Mia sleeps off camera.
[Dolores speaking]
[Mitchell speaking]
[Dolores speaking]
[Ramon] Where you at?
Yeah, it was...
it was a great opportunity for my kids to visit where I was born.
I took them back to where I used to live.
Yes! [exclaims]
I wanted them to see where I grew up.
I wanted to see, for them to see the beach, the river,
the countryside.
[indistinct chatter]
[Ramon speaking]
[Mitchell speaking]
[Ramon speaking]
[Dolores speaking]
[Mitchell] It's up.
[indistinct chatter]
[Ramon speaking]
[Mitchell] You know, growing up in Houston,
I remember thinking how crazy it was
that there were coconut trees in the backyard.
-[Ramon speaking] -[Mitchell speaking]
[Ramon speaking]
[Cris] Going to Puerto Rico for the first time.
That was such an amazing experience being there.
Me and my brother, we were.. we were a Mario and Luigi.
We would just go on these little adventures together.
[Ramon speaking]
Ah!
I took my kids to a nice little island,
that just a very small island
that's just outside of Puerto Rico, it's called Isla Icacos.
My kids, oh, my God.
When I told them they were gonna get on a boat
to go to an island, they just were amazed.
[Ramon speaking]
[Dolores speaking]
[Mitchell] It's almost like a paradise over there.
You know, the water is crystal clear.
The sand on the beach is, you know, white.
The food, the music is just something
I always wanted to be around.
[Mitchell speaking]
So, this is in... in Puerto Rico.
You know, my dad threw me off of his shoulders.
That's one thing I always wanted him to do.
He always likes to play rough with us.
[Ramon] So just relaxing and not even thinking about work
or what you got to do or getting up early
or all that stuff was just put aside for a week or two
and it's just a wonderful, great feeling.
[narrator] Back home in Houston,
Ramon works long hours for a courier company.
It was not easy taking care of a home
financially and... and three kids.
You know, and you have to get up, work
take care of the kids, come home.
Sometimes it gets stressful.
[Mitchell] I don't know how he did it.
I think my dad's been workin the same schedule
since he started, waking up at maybe 2:00 in the morning
and then getting off of work at, you know, around noon.
But it always seemed like he made time to hang out with us.
[David speaking]
[Ramon] This is in Bayamon, Puerto Rico.
My cousin, David's house.
He's showing Mitchell the chickens,
telling them that these are Puerto Rican chickens.
Mitchell, go ahead.
[Mitchell] I was afraid of grabbing 'em myself
because Cris...
Cris actually put his hand in there and they pecked him.
[indistinct chatter]
I was kind of joking with them, you know, so they...
they kind of took it literally, like, "For real, Dad?"
Like, I was, "No, this is not how a chicken looks,"
like when I eat it, it don't look like this.
[Ramon] Growing up in Puerto Rico,
that's how it was when I was little.
My grandmother literally would get the chickens
and she would kill them.
And that's what we'd have for dinner.
I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico
on June 1st, 1967.
My father was a very, very hard worker from the time that I can remember,
and he also was a professional wrestler.
And he would take me with hi on the weekends to go to the gym.
But this particular gym was for boxing.
Even though I was maybe about, maybe five, six
I find it fascinating how these guys were trainin
and all they were doing at the time.
There were some world champions
that trained at the gym.
We moved to the United State when I was being around nine or ten.
That's when I really started competing.
And I won several tournament I won junior Olympic champio
there in that area, till the age of 16 or 17,
that's when I competed in the amateur boxing.
I had a lot of fights. I had over 100 amateur fights.
I was doing very well.
And there was one promoter that signed me
to a professional contract in Puerto Rico.
But I was still a kid. I was homesick.
I was not training the way I was supposed to train.
Lost a couple of fights, and, you know,
I lost the love for it.
But I still wanted some kind of involvement with boxing.
[narrator] In 1989, Ramon is living in Los Angeles.
[Ramon] When I met Dolores, I was very young,
was about 22 years old, living in LA.
On my own, working and living the bachelor life
She was maybe 18, 19.
She had just graduated from high school.
I thought she was very attractive.
[narrator] The relationship lasts 12 months.
Dolores discovers that she is pregnant with Mitchel
after the breakup.
[Ramon] I was not there through the whole pregnancy
I have left her basically alone financially,
emotionally, and go through a pregnancy all by herself.
In a way, I was in denial.
But first time I saw my son I was very happy.
It was a very good thing, the most happiest day in my life.
The day we talked, saying sorry for everything that I had done.
I wanted her to come back to Houston with me.
But I think she said something to the effect of, you know,
I'll think about it.
And that gave me hope.
[narrator] In 1991, Dolores decides to move
to Texas to be with Ramon.
She gives birth to Cris two years later.
Baby Mia arrives in March 1997.
[Mia cooing]
[Cris] Oh, my gosh. Look at my sister.
Big old chunk.
Little chunk.
My brother is helping and I'm just in my own little world
trying to find some shells and rocks or something.
[Cris] My mom called me ove and I go right away.
I might be a mama's boy a little bit, some would say.
[Ramon] We were driving down on the way back home.
I can hear live music.
And I said, "Wait a second, man, they having live music over there."
And of course, my aunt, she just...
she loves, you know, to dance and have a good tim
And I just started dancing with her.
[Cris] Look at my pop, breaking it down.
That's it. That's Sosa time right there.
Unh. Ah.
I like how my dad peeks at the camera
just to make sure like you're getting this, right?
You're recording this.
[Ramon] In Puerto Rico, dancing is in our blood.
We love having parties and dancing and having a good time.
[Cris] We're with family, you know, we're dancing with anybody.
We're gonna put on a show.
[Mitchell] You know, family has always been a big thing for us.
There's never a dull moment.
[Ramon speaking]
[Ramon] They just loved the whole Puerto Rico, you know, atmosphere.
So, it was great, great feeling to see my kids happy.
Dolores had the kids at a very, very young age,
still a teenager.
And she never had got to experience
being young lady and having fun
and going out and being with friends
and stuff like that.
Over the years, we started to get a little more difficu
and I believe that I had a lot to do with that too,
because I didn't want her to work.
The thought that our kids are gonna be better taking care of
if she stayed at home.
[Cris] Mom made a, made a big decision
leaving my dad and taking us with her.
[Ramon] I would beg her.
I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I would beg for her to come back home.
I missed my kids so much.
I was very depressed and I didn't know
what the heck the depression was.
So, I just started coaching a lot more
and being involved a lot more with boxing.
[Mitchell] When my parents were split,
uh, every day after school, we'd go to my dad's house
and then we would go to the gym from there.
[Ramon] I started a non-prof called Young Prospects Boxin
I feel good about myself doing something
that was good for the community, good for the kids.
As a coach, you know, you're doing that not just for you,
you're doing it for a kid and you're doing it for their family.
It's just... this is, to me it's a bigger picture
than just worrying about you.
And you just got a little bigger and bigger.
And it was the time where I was training
some good fighters, you know, some former Olympians.
[Noris] Ramon was always involved
with some kind of celebrity or he was meeting somebody.
It was great. He, yes...
He used to come and tell us about it and show us pictures.
"Oh, look who I met" or, "Look at this person."
[Ramon] Being around boxing was great.
Whoo!
I just hated to come home sometimes.
You know, I just hate... hated the fact
that I had to come home to an empty house.
That particular evening, I remember I had a friend.
He told me about this place where they play salsa music
"They have a live band that plays live music there, man.
It's pretty, pretty nice place, man.
It's... Beautiful ladies that hang out over there, man. You should go check it out."
I pulled up to the place.
I had a little fancy sports car,
you know, BMW, had it all cleaned up.
You know, how it is. You're trying to just show off.
They're playing really nice music.
And I said, "Wow, this is nice."
I went to the bar and the next thing I know,
she walks in front of me and steps on my toe.
I was in pain. I was in a lot of pain.
I was like, "What the heck?"
Then I noticed, like, "Wow, beautiful lady."
And all I could say is like, "Would you dance with me?"
And she said, "Okay, yeah."
And we danced.
[narrator] The woman's name is Maria de Lourdes Dorantes
Lulu to her friends.
She was an excellent dancer
And I asked her, "Are you... are you Puerto Rican or Colombian?"
And she said, "Oh, no.
You know, a lot of people think that I am, but I'm Mexican."
I just love to dance salsa.
Once the place closed down, we were able to go outside
and talk for a little bit.
[narrator] Lulu reveals that she lives just outside of Houston.
She is in the United States on a visitor visa.
[Ramon] Lulu explained to m that she had moved to the United States
because she wanted a better life for her kids
and for herself.
And we had a lot in common as far as the kids
and coming back from difficult divorces
and stuff like that.
And the more we talked and dated, the more I guess
you know, we started liking each other.
It was the whirlwind type of relationship.
She was the type of person that gave you massages.
You know, my food on the table.
She was very attentive to me all the time.
[Cris] We were happy that he was happy.
And so, it was kind of something that we had
to like adapt to like, "Okay, well,
this is who's gonna be in the picture."
So, this is who we, you know, have to respect.
[Ramon] It's close to Christmas time
and we have been together for about 15 or 18 months already.
I feel that this is the right time to ask her to marry me.
And when I did, all she did she just started crying
and crying and crying and crying.
And she couldn't believe that I had asked to marry her.
[Cris] I heard about the wedding
the day he got married from my mom.
My mom just dropped the ball on us saying like,
"Hey, your dad got married today."
And we're like, "What?"
[Mitchell] I was dumbfounde and I was like, "Excuse me. What?"
And I was like, "That's really weird
for him to get married and us not know about it."
-Go on. -[Ramon speaking]
[Mitchell] You know, hindsight's 2020,
I should have been picking u on the stuff
and realizing that my dad wasn't interacting with us
the way he used to.
[Ramon] After a week of being marrie
I had talked about going on a honeymoon
and she was like, "No, no, no, no.
She's just not only... we don't need to be spending
any money on a honeymoon, that's just too, too expensive.
I don't want to spend that.
I don't want you to spend that kind of money.
We just spend that money on getting the paperwork started
for my Green Card."
So, I said, you know, that sounded, you know,
right, you know, whatever.
So, we just started looking into the process of her
and her kids getting a Green Card.
In the first few years, what they call the honeymoon years,
we're doing very well.
I feel like, "Wow, man, she is just this great,
great person, great lady, you know."
We had talked about opening up a gym, a business.
She loved training and she loved being around the gyms
and stuff like that.
So, she was all in.
[Cris] So, when my dad opened up his big gym,
his... his main gym,
The Woodlands Boxing and Fitness,
that was a very proud moment for everybody.
[Cris] You know, like he ha a bunch of members,
he has commercials.
He's doing, like, all these different promos.
He has merch, he has t-shirt
boxing gloves and punching bags.
I'm like, "Look at my dad really doing this.
You know, he's really doing it."
[Ramon] The advertising for the gym was all Lulu's idea.
Social media was starting to take off then,
so she thought that was, you know, free advertising.
Welcome to Woodlands Boxing and Fitness.
[Ramon] She had a group of ladies that she trained every day.
They became very, very close friends.
Yeah, she would... She ended up becoming a very good trainer.
With the profits we're getting from the gym,
the first thing we did, we bought motorcycles,
we had cars, we had nice jewelry,
a lot of nice clothes that she was getting.
But I think the house that we bought together
was the nicest thing that we had.
Financially, the gym just took off,
took off, and it was doing very, very well.
I mean, Woodlands Boxing and Fitness
was a very profitable gym.
[all speaking]
And I felt that nothing could go wrong.
[Noris] Well, the day that my son got married,
we invited Ramon and Lulu,
and she brought her children and she brought her mother.
And, um, it was a very, very exciting day.
We danced and we played and we cried. And we just..
We had an excellent time as a family.
She loved to dance, and my brother did too.
So, um, Ramon and her, I saw them dancing
and it seemed like it was, everything was, um...
was good.
[Ramon] That day I was holdi a lot of issues,
problems inside of me.
You know, you acting like everything's good
and, you know, you're laughi with my family
and taking pictures and this and that.
But in reality, you know,
we're having a lot of issues ourselves at home.
It bothered her a lot that I was spending money
on my son's education out of all things.
And...
and she would always throw i in my face that,
well, you don't spend that kind of money
or time with my kids.
[Mitchell] After Lulu and my dad got married, the.
the interest that she had shown
when we met initially, she was not there.
She just didn't want to be in the same room as us.
[Ramon] After our third year
she became an American citizen.
I remember a little disagreement that we had,
and she threw it in my face
She said, look, you know, I'm an American now.
I have all the rights in this country just like you do.
[Cris] We were kind of thinking lik
was this the reason that the marriage happened?
Was she just trying to get a Green Card
and become a US citizen?
And is she using my dad?
[Ramon] Now, at this point, we have a big two-storey hom
She's living upstairs with her mother and two kids
And I'm living downstairs by myself.
And when I talk about tension in the house,
it was like oil and water, we could not mix.
I didn't talk to her, she didn't talk to me.
And we were at the point where there was no return.
Lulu actually served me with papers for the divorce.
It was just so horrible, uh, situation how we were living.
I met Mundo back in the year around 2000 or s
and that's when I had the non-profit boxing gym.
Mundo had a rough upbringing
He ended up joining a local gang.
That life got him in trouble and he eventually ended up in prison.
[Cris] He was going through a hard time and boxing was his therapy.
My dad changed Mundo's life by keeping him out of trouble
and keeping him in the gym.
[Ramon] Fast forward about 15 years later,
a lot of Saturdays he would open the gym
so I can have a break.
And one day I remember I was driving...
and Mundo calls me and he tells me,
hey... hey, he keeps coming, "Pops, hey pops.
I think, uh, Lulu... Lulu, she wants to kill you."
I said, "Quit playing around this is not a joke, man. Quit... quit messing around.
He goes, "I seen that look.
I seen that look when people want to kill somebody,
she wants to kill you."
He told me that on this particular evening..
he just happened to walk by Lulu
and she was talking to somebody
and he just overheard them talking about somebody
in Mexico that cuts up people and chops up people
and kills people or whatever for money.
And Lulu answered by, "Hmm, maybe we could use him."
And then later that evening as the gym was about to clos
there was, you know, only a few people there,
Mundo walked up to Lulu by herself
and kind of sparked up the conversation again,
asking her, "Hey, that conversation you were having earlier,
was that about Ramon?"
And she said, "Yeah, you know, I'm just tired of him.
I wish they would just take him away.
I wish he would just go away, I can't stand him anymore."
And Mundo said, "Are you talking about going away?"
And he made the pistol sign with his hand
like, going away like this?
And she said, yeah, going away like that.
And that's where it all started.
When Mundo told me about that conversation,
I was like, "Dang, you know, what I do?
I mean, what's... what's, you know, what's the deal?"
I mean, I was... I don't know.
You know, I was so upset. Do I go to the police? Do I do... What do I do?
And he said not to worry about it.
I told that I was gonna meet up with her
and see how far she's willing to go with this.
The next meeting that Lulu had with Mundo,
Mundo started recording their conversation
in a cell phone he had in his pocket.
He told her, "I got the people that can do the job."
This is the person that at one time
we were so in love and were expected to live
our rest of our lives together.
And now I'm here listening to her telling Mundo
how she wanted to keep the business, the house, everything.
She wanted me gone.
She wanted me dead.
[Mike] My sergeant at the ti called me at home,
it was a Sunday, and expressed that
he had two individuals at our office
that were describing a plot for a murder.
[bleep]
[Mike] I asked Mundo, what was it about him
that would make Maria believe
that he did have the connections
to facilitate such a crime?
[Mike] I've never really had a lot of individuals
that were reporting a crime
also provide evidence of the investigation
that they had been conducting.
[Mike] Based on what I have heard
and based on what I have see
this case definitely warrant an investigation.
[Kelly] The difference betwe actually committing the crim
and just talking about, um, committing the crime
is the intent.
You don't want to arrest and charge someone
with solicitation of capital murder
if they're not intending to carry it out.
If they're just angry, if they're just venting.
So, the plan was to try to introduce
an undercover officer acting as a hitman
that could record evidence of her actually trying
to solicit someone to kill Ramon.
[Mike] During the first mee with Maria, the undercover
obviously asked what it is that she wanted done.
[Mike] She knew what she wanted done
and she had no problem asking for it.
Lulu during the first meetin explains that they are goin
through a divorce proceeding
There is a court date in a couple of days
so that it was a very big concern of hers
that this killing be conducted very quickly.
[Kelly] There was a large business that she was involved in
and they had a nice home together.
If he's dead before they're divorced,
she gets all of it.
[Mike] 50% wasn't quite good enough for her.
She wanted it all.
She also went to an ATM that night
and pulled out $500
as a down payment for the hitman.
As soon as she did that,
we could have arrested her that night
if we would have wanted to.
Maria had already made the solicitation,
she made the payment.
But I needed to get the evidence to make sure
that we got a justice senten
and that she was gonna go to prison for a long time.
I wanted video of her looking at his dead body
because I wanted a judge or a jury
to be able to see her reaction.
And so, I wanted to set up and stage his murder.
[siren blaring]
[Ramon] I didn't know what to expect
when I arrived at the police station.
For them to put on my makeup.
To me, it seemed like they didn't know what they were gonna do.
[Jason] We were nervous. We were scared.
We were worried that it wasn't gonna be good enough.
And there was literally someone's life at stake here.
We had no experience in applying the makeup ourselves.
So that's why we resorted to YouTube tutorials.
And we practiced on my partner's hand.
After about an hour, maybe an hour and a half,
we thought we had a realistic gunshot wound.
You know, it was sink or swim. It was time to go.
We were running out of time.
[Mike] Lulu was very despera due to the time limit
that she had concerning this court proceeding.
So, it was important for us to find the mob scene
for the murder as soon as possible.
Luckily for us, the county actually owned
a small field that we could use
to dig a hole.
[Ramon] Unreal.
I just cannot believe what I was going through.
And on the drive up there, I'd remember thinking of all my kids,
my parents, my family,
because I knew they were gonna see this picture sooner or later.
[Mike] We had him remove all of his clothing
except for his boxers.
Put his hands behind his back as though his hands were bound.
Keep him consistent with being kidnapped,
executed and buried.
[Ramon] Taught me how to pos
They threw some dirt on me on top of me.
And here I was, laying on my grave.
[Mike] At this point of the investigation,
Ramon is supposed to be deceased,
so it was important that we remove
all electronic communication devices from him
and place it in the safe house.
[Ramon] I was very, very worried in that room.
I mean, I hardly slept.
My mother and father, I spoke with them just about every day.
It was gonna be very difficult because I always answered their calls.
[Jason] Leading up to the meeting
between the undercover and Mrs. Sosa,
our... our anxiety was... was pretty high.
Because she had to believe he was dead.
[Mike] So, in order to ensur that we had Maria's reaction
we had multiple audio and video devices
installed in the vehicle.
[Jason] They have an initial exchange.
He proceeds to tell her that it's done.
He then presents her with his cell phone
to show her the photos.
You know, all the investigators were curious
as to what the reaction of Maria would be.
We were all surprised when she laughed.
[Jason] To smile at seeing your spouse dead in a hole,
um, is significant.
I was shocked.
So as soon as Maria learned that Ramon was dead,
she immediately turned to business
and to satisfy the debt.
[Mike] Suspects acting like Maria Sosa did
is extremely rare.
Fortunately, it's rare.
Before she stepped out of the car,
she smiled, took a deep breath
and raise the roof with her hands
because she was so excited and relieved that
now she was free from Ramon
[Noris] It was very unusual for Ramon not to answer
and not to be at work.
That's why I started getting very concerned
about my brother.
[Mike] We knew at this poin that Ramon's family
and friends had been calling Maria
and calling around, trying to find out
where he was or if she knew anything about where he was.
And so, we wanted to see how she would react
when the officers approached her.
[indistinct chatter on radio]
[Jason] I went into the gym with a uniformed officer
and I pretended to be a detective investigating
a missing person's report.
[Jason] We find that there's three people there.
Um, it was Mrs. Sosa, her mom and her daughter.
[Jason] She picked up her cell phone
and started scrolling through the call history
and the text history to try and give us an idea
when she last talked to him
[Jason] We just let her tal as much as she could.
Everything was being recorde on body cam,
so it was gonna be used as evidence.
It was the final nail in the coffin, for lack of a better term.
[Jason] After I felt like we had enough on video,
I gave my counterpart a non-verbal indicator that...
that I was going to put her in cuffs
and affect the arrest.
[Kelly] When Maria Sosa was arrested,
her mom was acting completely surprised.
Her mom was asking questions
she was following the officers out.
I'm asking them what's going on,
asking Maria, what's going on.
You could tell that she was completely surprise
and taken aback by what was happening.
[indistinct chatter]
[Kelly] Once Maria was arrested and taken to the station,
she was given the opportunity to talk to the officers
about what had happened.
[Kelly] When you arrest someone,
you don't have to read them their Miranda rights.
That's... that's a television thing.
The only time you're required to read them
their Miranda warnings is before if you
want to interview them.
She asked for a lawyer, which was fine
because we had all the evidence we needed.
And so, she was charged with solicitation of capital murder.
[news reporter] ...an investigation resultin in the event...
Maria Sosa...
[Noris] My mom... it was at my sister's house
she saw them on TV,
and that was the breaking news.
And that's how my mom found out.
[news reporter] Mrs. Sosa met with a man
that would carry out the murder.
Everybody knew on the news that Lulu
had been arrested, but they didn't mention me.
[news reporter] She is currently being held and...
[Ramon] I called my mother
and my father answered the phone.
And in the background, I hear my mother,
she was so upset, crying, thinking that I was dead.
Finally, when I got there, my mother was on the couch,
and when she saw me, she just started crying even harder.
[Noris] When Ramon walked i into the room
and we saw him that he was okay
and he told my mom, mom, it's okay,
I'm here, I am doing well.
You know, it was unbelievable.
[Mike] When Maria came in to plead in front of the judge,
she'd already been in jail for over 15 months.
[Ramon] I remember the first hearing,
the first thing that caught my eyes were her shoe
Here she was wearing $1 state shoes,
dressed in a prison suit.
[Kelly] The agreement that was made was that
she would plead guilty to solicitation of murder,
which carries the same punishment range as capital murder,
and receive a sentence of 20 years in prison.
[Ramon] In all the hearings and all the times
that we were in the courtroom together,
she never looked at me once
She had no remorse whatsoever.
When she was sentenced
I tell people I feel like all the air
was left out of the balloon of anger.
I mean, I just was able to sleep better, eat better,
physically I felt a heck of a lot better.
And, you know, life goes on.
[Mitchell] My dad's essentially like Rocky to me you know?
It doesn't matter...
It doesn't matter how hard you hit,
what matters is how hard you can get hit
and keep moving forward.
Whoo!
[Cris] My dad, you know, he hugs us a little longer,
tells us he loves us more than... than usual.
And, you know, most importantly, stays coo
and stays fly, stays funny.
He keeps the, keeps that, that Sosa energy alive.
Yeah.