(tense music)
- [Narrator] Every suspect accused of a crime
has the right to remain silent.
Many agree to be interrogated anyway,
but they can stop the interview at any moment,
making it a race against time.
Justice hangs in the balance.
(tense music)
- When you find a body in a dumpster,
it's one of those things that is just horrific.
We respond with everything we've got,
including the Texas Rangers.
- The Rangers are a specialized unit
of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Sometimes they can bring a broader perspective.
From observing the evidence at the scene
in the back right corner of the dumpster,
there was a blue tub, and there was a body
that appeared to be bound and wrapped up.
I remember a foot protruding from the sheet.
(tense music)
- When we took the tote outta the dumpster,
we discovered it was an adult female.
And she was wrapped inside some linens.
As we removed the body,
we also found a bottle of pine cleaner.
She had had a gunshot wound, it looked like,
at an entrance just about the temple here
and just in front of the ear, an exit wound.
- The victim was shot by a low-caliber handgun.
This gunshot had to have happened
within maybe two to three feet.
There was a little bit of stippling and stuff real close
to the skull there and to the skin that left a burn mark.
It wasn't a direct impact,
but you were very close to this person when this happened.
(tense music)
- She didn't have any identification on her.
We didn't know who she was.
So the first
major hurdle we've gotta do is figure out who this is.
- We took a photo of the victim's face
and she had some very distinct tattoos.
And we distributed that within the sheriff's office, DPS,
and San Angelo Police Department.
(tense music) (officers chattering)
- As a kid, Camille was into things like painting.
She loved art, she loved music.
I would say she was a daddy's girl.
Whenever we were together, she was always next to me.
You know, we'd be dancing,
or, you know, listening to music,
or doing something fun.
She was the one trying to crack jokes,
making you laugh and laughing out loud herself.
Camille had the Amy Winehouse look kinda going on there
with the eyeliner and the beehive hair.
Camille also was very fascinated by Marilyn Monroe.
She loved her babies to death.
She loved to play with them and put on cartoons.
Camille was a beautiful person
and she still had a lot of life to live,
and that was taken away from her.
(somber music)
- Based off of the body,
the way it was bound, thrown in that tote,
we believe it was probably a domestic situation,
meaning it was somebody close to her,
either a boyfriend, husband, ex-boyfriend,
something like that.
- I came across a photograph of her and a male subject.
And I knew him by face
because I've dealt with him in the past.
We identified this male as Gilbert Hernandez.
(dramatic music)
- It was certain they had some kind of relationship,
whether it be fleeting
or whether it be some type of romantic relationship,
but we knew that he would definitely
be a person of interest.
(tense music)
- We wanted to find out what information he could give us
about Camille Garcia
and find out if he was involved in the murder,
because we were really at ground zero.
We needed to talk to anybody
that could give us any information.
- I recognize the name Little Machine.
A lotta times we get street names
and Little Machine was Andres Ramirez,
somebody law enforcement had dealings with
for several years in the San Angelo area.
(tense music)
- At this point, he's a person of interest.
We wanna bring him in and talk to him, obviously.
We don't wanna cause him to run
or destroy evidence at the same time.
So we set up a surveillance team on his house.
We did have the information
that he had a suspended driver's license.
And then when he drove away from the house,
he did make an illegal turn,
which gave us probable cause to affect the traffic stop.
(tense music) (police radio chatter)
- They pulled him outta the vehicle
and arrested him for those traffic violations.
And we were very careful at the time
of not tipping our hand of what the real reason was.
Andres said that he wanted to kinda speak
with the person in charge.
That normally does not happen during a traffic stop.
Saying that is a big red flag of,
well, what's he wanting to talk about?
- Turned out there was a loaded nine millimeter
in the back of his vehicle.
- We knew that the wound was a gunshot wound
of a caliber pistol that would be similar probably
to a nine millimeter.
And so we felt like it's a good possibility
we have the murder weapon right here in this vehicle.
- And we found some paint and some cleaning supplies,
some rubber gloves.
His brother, Ruben, he was in the front passenger seat.
He was wanted for some outstanding warrants.
So we arrested him and brought him back
to the Sheriff's Office as well
and impounded the vehicle at the same time.
(tense music)
- Handling a body is difficult.
It's usually a two-person job.
Lifting that body up and into a dumpster,
I thought would take two people.
And so I felt confident that we needed
to not only interview Andres,
but we needed to interview his brother.
(tense music)
- It was now our goal to try to figure out
which one was involved,
'cause it could have been both, at that point.
Andres or Ruben?
- It was literally like trying to peer through weeds
to the other side.
He was so rambling and incoherent.
We had some information that he had been a user
and a dealer of methamphetamines.
I think he wanted to present himself
as not all in his right mind.
(melancholy music)
- That night, I was awoken by a phone call
and they had just told me
that something horrible had happened.
Camille had been killed.
I was just in shock.
It's just a phone call no parent wants to get.
And there's no way in the world you can tell
an eight-year-old child that her mother was murdered.
So, I just had to tell Stella that her mother had gotten sick
and that she passed away.
(melancholy music) (sobbing)
It was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do.
(tense music)
- Man, you're talking on another level
that I don't understand right now.
- Yeah, exactly.
(tense music)
- So when you're talking to somebody
that is kinda all over the place,
trying to lead you different ways
or talk about different things
that has nothing to do with the case,
you've really gotta bring them back.
You try to get to a point where you have a rapport with them.
(Andres laughs)
We hadn't mentioned any assault or harm to any other person.
We just said we need to talk to you about something.
And he brings up the word kill and her in the same sentence.
Real red flags went off there, you know?
I could see that he was getting real stressed out.
I didn't wanna bring down that stress.
I just wanted to see if the stress
would bring out another emotion.
- So, I was just trying to put a face
with the person that we were speaking about in his mind.
So he realized, you know, this was a human.
He did perk up quite a bit
and take a very close look at that picture.
I could tell that there were some wheels turning upstairs.
- His demeanor changed.
He became more calmer.
We noticed his speech patterns started changing
and we thought we're on the right path
and we gotta continue down the road.
(tense music) (indistinct conversation)
- Going into this interview,
we knew that he was possibly involved
in the homicide of Camille Garcia.
And so very possibly he could be the trigger man himself.
And that was our perspective as we walked in the room.
(clock ticking)
- Now he's admitted that he wanted
to have a physical relationship with my victim.
So that still threw up the whole, okay,
maybe he did it because now we can have a motive.
(tense music)
- The fact that he would not know
about a nine millimeter pistol that was inside the vehicle,
I found that very hard to believe.
- A statement like that is gold for an investigator.
To hear your own brother say
that you're capable of random acts of violence,
such as smashing his head in if he asks a question,
well, then what is he willing to do to somebody else?
(tense music)
(indistinct conversation)
- Okay. Was he driving?
Okay. I don't know your dad. What's his name?
(indistinct conversation)
- When their sentences become short,
their speech patterns change,
that's all an indicator for an investigator
to know we're on the right path.
- We were building our case to him
that he knew there was no escape.
We still believe they may have knowledge
of what's happened to Camille Garcia.
(tense music)
- He wasn't offering any new leads.
And it comes to point in time
where you're just spinning your wheels.
- If you need to, you can take a break,
you can take 'em outside, let 'em have a cigarette.
And a lotta times, their anxiety goes down
and they're a lot more calm, willing to speak.
(tense music)
- So we walked outside, said,
"Hey, do you have anything to do with this?"
And his response was, "I don't know. Possibly."
(tense music)
- When we get a big break, you know, this is your chance.
He's opened the door and it kinda signals
that he's wanting to talk more
and give the details of what happened and his involvement.
- Um.
(tense music)
- Every cop wants a confession.
And it was a very, very big moment in my head.
But there's so much more to it than that.
We have to get him to say why he did it.
We have to get him to say what happened after he did it.
So there's lots more to build on
after that initial, "I shot her."
- We had to get enough evidence to get a conviction.
- So I was trying to show him some connection,
some humanity there, you know, that I'm concerned.
Hey, man, we need to keep going here.
Of course he knows he just confessed.
I wanted him to not stop there
and kinda go back into his shell.
We need to keep talking this out.
- I want him to tell me how the victim was.
I want him to tell me how the victim's posture was,
the position they were in,
because that's gonna help me in interviewing him
and ultimately making this a very good confession
versus an okay confession.
I wanna be able to chip away
at any defense he may have later.
I just gotta wrap my head around.
I just gotta wrap my head.
Right here like this.
(tense music) (clock ticking)
- We don't always do a demonstration
(chuckling) using the investigator.
We have dummies.
But I kind of just went with it
because he was standing up, I was standing up.
I wanted him to feel comfortable using me.
I wanted him to keep talking.
We needed to cover everything.
- We hadn't found a knife
and she didn't have any offensive wounds on her hands.
So everything wasn't adding up to me
about the knife being in the story.
- He minimizes his role in her death
and really tries to put all the blame on her.
He's trying to make it in his mind that he had to kill her.
- He starts to try to develop that whole self-defense thing.
So we needed to put that defense in the ground.
(tense music)
- I knew that we had caught him
in a little bit of a pickle there for him
and his confession about self-defense.
At what point would she change?
After I killed her?
Maybe she changed. Who knows?
- Yeah. - Yeah. That's ridiculous.
(tense music)
- He didn't show any type of signs of being hurt in any way.
We've seen that before where they'll grab the knife
and they still get cut on their hands and the forearms.
Nothing like that on his end.
So everything wasn't adding up to me
about the knife being in the story.
Did he kill her by shooting her in the head?
It's obvious he did.
Did he demonstrate everything with the knife
and articulate that she had a knife
in a way that made me believe it?
Not a chance.
(tense music)
- Now we had the ability to say, no, your brother did this,
he admitted to this,
and maybe that would help him start talking
about his involvement.
(tense music) (clock ticking)
How would I react
if somebody told me my brother had committed a murder
and just confessed to it?
There'd be some emotional reaction.
There'd be some shock.
Then since you didn't sense this,
my perspective was, well, he already knew.
- He's still sticking to his story that he didn't help.
So we started formulating a different strategy.
I was just trying to abruptly confront him with a bluff.
Whether it was true or not, I didn't really care that much.
(tense music)
- You have that gut feeling
that this person was involved,
but knowing something
and proving something's completely different.
And in our world,
I will never put anybody behind bars
that I can't prove beyond a shadow of a doubt did something.
(tense music)
(indistinct conversation)
- He had just told us, you know,
he'd killed her in a different place than she was located.
So I wanted him to keep talking
'cause I knew we had a lot to build up in this case.
- These are all blocks in a wall you're trying to build
and it helps in the investigation.
- You know, just keep building on it.
Keep chipping away.
(clock ticking)
(tense music)
- Police caught the man they believe killed Camille.
Andres Ramirez was named a person of interest on Wednesday.
When Ramirez was questioned
about Camille's murder, he confessed.
And Ramirez is still being held in jail in San Angelo.
(tense music)
- We get inside the house and it reeks of pine cleaner.
And you could see where he had cleaned the couch.
And the bullet had gone all the way through
into the back frame of the couch.
There were some sheets and comforters
that matched the set of sheets and comforter
that she was found in at the dumpster.
There was a great deal of evidence
that just corroborated everything he'd said
during the confession.
(tense music)
(crickets chirring)
(birds cawing)
(tense music)
(dates ticking)
- The trial for Andres Rios Ramirez began
at 9:00 AM on Monday.
Both sides told the jury,
it's not a question of who shot Camille Garcia,
it's a question of whether or not it was in self-defense.
(tense music)
- Go like that.
And I tell her, "(bleep), stop!"
And like, when she comes back like that.
- Like this? - Yeah.
- This kinda confession is exactly the type
of confession you wanna have
if you have to go to court in front of a jury.
We were able to refute pretty much every instance
of him saying it was self-defense.
We were able to let him use his own words.
We were able to let him use his own demonstration.
(tense music)
- No one alive on this Earth right now
has the right to decide who lives and who dies.
And that's what that monster did.
And now he got what he deserved.
- It gives us some relief of the fact
that we can tell the family that we did our best.
We were able to find the suspect
that caused their daughter's death
and eventually put him away forever.
- When we receive a conviction on a homicide
such as this,
at the end of the day, you do feel good
that you've done your job in protecting the community.
(melancholy music)
- And, you know, there's no substitute for a mother.
On Camille's birthday,
I send them pictures of their mother
and just talk to them about her when I'm with them.
They still have memories of being there with her
and all that love that she gave them
and all the laughter and the fun that they had together.
If Camille was here with us,
I'd tell Camille that I love her very much.