Copyright © 1992, The Austin American-Statesman
Jim Phillips, James E. Garcia,
Arrests made in yogurt shop case: 2 suspected in teen murders face charges in Mexico City., 10-23-1992.
MEXICO CITY - Two men are in custody here and will face charges that they murdered four teen-age girls at a North Austin yogurt shop in December, drawing toward a conclusion what law officers have called the most massive, and most emotional, criminal investigation in Central Texas history.
Mexican authorities said one of the men has confessed to the slayings that rocked Austin and brought national publicity and sympathy to the city.
One of the suspects may be a former deliveryman for a company that delivered goods to the yogurt shop, and both men are members of a motorcycle gang that has drug smuggling ties, Mexican police said.
The two suspects will be arraigned in Mexico and are expected to be charged with the four murders. They could face up to 200 years for the murders, and are charged with additional crimes. There is no death penalty in Mexico. A third man is sought for questioning.
The break in the case, the arrest Wednesday of the first suspect, came a week after Austin police officers traveled to the capital city to seek the cooperation of Mexican authorities in the investigation.
In Austin, a city that had been drawn together in an unprecedented show of support for the families and police, and outrage at the mass murder, was able Thursday to breathe its first tentative sighs of relief in the 10 1/2-month-old investigation.
Killed in the Dec. 6 attack at I Can't Believe It's Yogurt!, 2949 W. Anderson Lane, were Jennifer Harbison, 17; her sister, Sarah, 15; Eliza Thomas, 17; and Amy Ayers, 13. All were shot to death before the shop was set ablaze.
The city's unity of purpose - marches, candlelight vigils, a $100, 000 reward and a song of remembrance - kept the crimes in the public' s attention and helped draw nationwide television coverage of the killings and the subsequent manhunt. On Thursday evening, people returned to the yogurt shop to remember the girls. Some cried. Some stood silently. Some posted notes of their love for the girls on the shop's windows.
Barbara Suraci, mother of the Harbisons, said Thursday, "I justgot the chills when they said he's been charged with murder. I've been sick to my stomach all day. You want to feel good about it, but it brings all the reality back.
"I'm not ready for murder yet. I'm still juggling grief."
The international search for the three suspects has centered here since August, when Travis County authorities first revealed that the three had been named in a sealed indictment. That indictment, returned in March, charged them with aggravated kidnapping in an Austin abduction and sexual assault that occurred less than a month before the slayings at the yogurt shop.
Police in Mexico said Thursday that Porfirio Villa Saavedra, 28, intended to rob the yogurt shop and thought he would find it empty. Instead, he found the four girls, two of whom worked at the shop, raped them and mutilated their bodies, police said.
Villa Saavedra, nicknamed "The Terminator," is the leader of a 60- member motorcycle gang with ties to international drug trafficking and other organized crime, Mexican officials said. The gang is known as Mierdas Punks. The gang operates out of the poverty-stricken Mexico City suburb of Ciudad Netzahualcototl.
Villa Saavedra was arrested on suspicion of murder in the resort city of Puerta Vallarta on Wednesday. Alberto Jimenez Cortez, 26, who is nicknamed "El Brujo," the witch, was arrested at his home in Netzahualcototl early Thursday. Cortez, also a member of the motorcycle gang, told police he did n ot take part in the killings. He was arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice to the murders.
The third suspect is Ricardo A. Hernandez, 26. The three grew up together in a poor section of Mexico City, police said.
Police brought Villa Saavedra before reporters, who asked him whether he had killed the Austin girls. The man said yes. Asked why, he shook his head and mumbled something unintelligible.
Authorities said Villa Saavedra may have been a former employee of the yogurt shop or of a delivery company that brought supplies to the shop. Yogurt company officials have said they do not believe he ever worked for the shop.
Mexican Assistant Attorney General Jose Elias Romero Apis said Villa Saavedra was responsible for the crime. "He forced the young girls to submit, then he raped them, tied them up, and shot them."
Austin police will be allowed to question the suspects, according to George Nathanson, a spokesman for the Mexican attorney general' s office.
In a prepared statement, District Attorney Ronnie Earle expressed relief at the arrests.
"Not only all the people of Texas, but the entire United States have grieved with us over our loss. We are grateful for the work of the Mexican government," Earle said.
"The Austin Police Department and the Travis County district attorney' s office have been conferring with officials in Mexico about the two men they have apprehended. We are assembling information to aid Mexican authorities in their work on this case. This case represents an unprecedented level of cooperation and we look forward to continuing to work with Mexican officials."
After Villa Saavedra was arrested, Earle and his first assistant, Steve McCleery, went to the office of the police task force before dawn Thursday to participate in discussions and negotiations with Mexican officials.
"They will not be extradited because Mexican law forbids the extradition of Mexican nationals," Romero Apis said. He said Mexicans can be tried in Mexico for crimes committed abroad.
Nathanson also said the suspects may face four counts of murder, with a maximum sentence of 50 years each. He said the terms could run consecutively.
Mexican authorities also have charged Villa Saavedra and Cortez in the sexual assault of a woman three weeks before the yogurt shop murders. She was kidnapped near the Cavity Club in downtown Austin and taken to San Antonio. That charge carries a prison sentence in Mexico of 12 to 21 years.
Both men also are charged with drug trafficking and gun smuggling charges, officials said. The drug charge has a sentence of 10 to 25 years.
If sentenced to prison, the men could receive "good time" credit for all charges except the drug trafficking charge, said Nathanson. The credit could reduce their sentences by one-third.
Both Villa Saavedra and Cortez have criminals records in the United States. Villa Saavedra was deported from Houston to Mexico in September 1991 after the Texas Department of Corrections released him or parole, according to
prison records. He also was arrested in Belton in November 1991 on charge of unlawfully carrying a weapon, Bell County records state.
Cortez was sentenced in September 1990 to five years in prison for burglary and theft, and his parole ends in 1995, records show.
Apparently at the behest of Mexican officials, Austin police, who have been relentless in their investigation and their support for media attention on the case, were silent after the arrests.
Senior Sgt. Ron Smith, head of the task force investigating the murders, said, "We cannot say a thing one way or another."
The only comment from the Austin Police Department came from Acting Chief George Phifer, who said, "We're enthusiastic. We're very appreciative of all their efforts."
The groundwork for the arrests was laid last March, when police released a sketch, but no name, of a man wanted in the Nov. 17 abduction that began at the Cavity Club, 615 Red River St. At the time, police noted that the sketch strongly resembled the drawing of a man seen seated in a car outside the yogurt shop on the night the four teen-agers were slain.
A week later, the sealed indictments naming the three suspects were returned by a Travis County grand jury. When the indictments were unsealed in August, police said they did not have evidence to charge them in the yogurt slayings, but wanted to question them.
Austin American-Statesman staff writers Daniel J. Vargas, Kerry Haglund, Kimberly Garcia, Tim Lott, Starita Smith and Chuck Lindell contributed to this report.
Copyright © 1992, The Austin American-Statesman
Jim Phillips, James E. Garcia,
Arrests made in yogurt shop case: 2 suspected in teen murders face charges in Mexico City., 10-23-1992.