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The Dark History of Wharton County Part One · Gone Cold - Texas True Crime

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Gone Call. Podcasts may contain violent or graphic subject matter.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Listener discretion is advised. Wharton County covers more than a
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: thousand square miles southwest of Houston. It's larger than the
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  Speaker 1: entire city of Houston, but instead of freeways and high rises,
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  Speaker 1: much of it is rice fields, cattle pastures, river bottoms,
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  Speaker 1: and long stretches of two lane roads that disappear into
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  Speaker 1: the coastal prairie. Communities like Wharton, El Campo, Danavang, Gnado, Bowling, Louise,
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  Speaker 1: and other small places most Texans have never heard of
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: are scattered across the landscape, connected by highways and generations
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  Speaker 1: of shared history. Many of the folks who build lives
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  Speaker 1: and raise families there never leave. But Wharton County has
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  Speaker 1: another history. The kind that offeron defines a place regardless
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  Speaker 1: of the good things that proceed or follow, the dark kind.
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  Speaker 1: It's a history of violence and consequence of justice found,
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  Speaker 1: justice denied, and the people caught somewhere in between. Violence
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  Speaker 1: inevitably changes the people who survive it. It changes the
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  Speaker 1: stories families tell around kitchen tables. Over the last century
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: and a half, Wharton County has answered violence in very
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: different ways. There were man hunts that drew hundreds into
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  Speaker 1: the river bottoms. There were feuds settled on the open prairie.
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  Speaker 1: There were nights when entire families were slaughtered. There was
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: vigilante justice, there was senseless destruction, and there were people
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  Speaker 1: who simply disappeared, leaving only uncertainty behind. Wharton County was
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  Speaker 1: established on April third, eighteen forty six, by the Texas Legislature,
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  Speaker 1: just months after Texas became a state. Named for brothers
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  Speaker 1: William Harris Wharton, a leader in the Texas Revolution, and
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  Speaker 1: John Austin Wharton, a wealthy plantation owner. The county grew
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  Speaker 1: through agriculture, cotton first, then cattle, followed by sugar and rice.
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  Speaker 1: By eighteen sixty, the fertile valleys of the Colorado River
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  Speaker 1: and Caney Creek held the state's largest sugar mill and
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  Speaker 1: some of its most valuable farmland. That prosperity was built
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: through the forced labor of enslaved people, who made up
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  Speaker 1: the majority of Wharton County's population before the Civil War.
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  Speaker 1: Reconstruction reshaped the county afterward. After June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: when Union Major General Gordon Granger and his troops came
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  Speaker 1: to Houston to announce that the enslaved people of Texas
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  Speaker 1: were now free. Freedmen established churches and communities of their own.
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  Speaker 1: Mexican settlements endured. New families arrived and planted roots that
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: stretched across generations. As settlements spread across the prairie, so
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  Speaker 1: did the law. But law and justice are not necessarily
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  Speaker 1: the same thing. In February of eighteen eighty eight, violence
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  Speaker 1: came to a settlement called Spanish Camp. According to contemporary
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  Speaker 1: newspaper accounts and later documentation preserved a historical lynching records,
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  Speaker 1: Black residents there had purchased land and successfully defended their
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  Speaker 1: ownership in Wharton District Court. Then, around two o'clock one morning,
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  Speaker 1: a cabin occupied by members of that community was set
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  Speaker 1: on fire. People fled into the darkness, where gunfire met them.
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  Speaker 1: Five people were reported shot to death as they tried
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  Speaker 1: to escape. One person was seriously wounded, two others died
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  Speaker 1: inside the burning structure. Nearby, the body of a black
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  Speaker 1: man named William Battle was discovered hanging from a tree.
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  Speaker 1: Newspapers across Texas described it as one of the most
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: horrifying crimes ever committed in that region of the state.
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  Speaker 1: They also reported that no arrests had been made. The
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  Speaker 1: victims of Spanish Camp were buried, and with them many
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  Speaker 1: of the answers. Seven years later, County again found itself
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  Speaker 1: marked by violence. In May of eighteen ninety five, a
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  Speaker 1: long simmering feud erupted into bloodshed in a place locals
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  Speaker 1: called the Sandy's. The Sandys was a small rural community
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  Speaker 1: in extreme northwestern Wharton County, near Sandy Creek and about
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  Speaker 1: sixteen miles northwest of El Campo. It was little more
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  Speaker 1: than scattered homes across miles of sandy prairie. By the
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  Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, it had separate schools serving black and
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  Speaker 1: white children, a church, and families who often depended more
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  Speaker 1: on one another than on distant county officials. It was
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  Speaker 1: there that the sheriff gathered deputies and posses after reports
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  Speaker 1: of multiple murders. The victims were members of the Crocker family.
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  Speaker 1: Apparently this violence had roots stretching back years. The Crocker's
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: house had been burned while the destitute family was out
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  Speaker 1: looking for work. That was followed by their murders. When
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  Speaker 1: authorities finally found the bodies, they discovered mister Crocker, Missus Crocker,
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  Speaker 1: and their son, reported in some sources as only ten
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  Speaker 1: years old, had all been shot. Some accounts state that
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  Speaker 1: after mister Crocker was already dead, his attackers emptied their
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  Speaker 1: weapons into him again and again. It's also said that
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: when Missus Crocker was found, she was still alive but
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: badly injured, and then was finished off. Authorities eventually arrested
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  Speaker 1: multiple suspects, reports vary placing the number between seven and
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  Speaker 1: ten men. One, a man named Frank Martin, was found
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  Speaker 1: by a court to have been part of the mob.
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  Speaker 1: He was eventually hanged. Though the reason for the lynchings
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  Speaker 1: is reported by a few sources as the Crockers being
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  Speaker 1: responsible for local murder, most indicate that the family committed
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  Speaker 1: no known crimes or offenses at all. In October of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen oh eight, Ben Price sat inside the Glen Flora jail. Price,
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  Speaker 1: a black man, had been accused of sexually assaulting his
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  Speaker 1: young daughter. He never stood trial. A mob forced its
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  Speaker 1: way into the jail, removed Price from custody, and took
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  Speaker 1: him into town. There, beneath the branches of a pecan tree,
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  Speaker 1: they hanged him. There would be no testimony, no witnesses
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  Speaker 1: called before a jury. Whatever justice looked like that night,
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  Speaker 1: it didn't pass through a courtroom. Twelve years later, Wharton
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  Speaker 1: County was consumed by violence once more. In June of
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  Speaker 1: nineteen twenty, Deputy Sheriff H. C. McCormick and a Constable
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  Speaker 1: Pittman rode out to the farm of Washington Guy Giles,
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  Speaker 1: a black farmer living near Damon Mound, to arrest him
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  Speaker 1: on a misdemeanor complaint involving the alleged mistreatment of a
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  Speaker 1: neighbor's dog. Washington Giles and his brother Osborne were plowing
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  Speaker 1: their fields when the officers arrived. They finished the row
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  Speaker 1: they were working before returning to the house. What happened
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  Speaker 1: next depended on who was telling the story. Giles reportedly
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  Speaker 1: agreed to accompany the officers if his wife could go
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  Speaker 1: with him. While she went inside to prepare for the trip,
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  Speaker 1: the confrontation reignited. Pittman later testified that he struck Giles
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  Speaker 1: in the head with his pistol during the struggle. By
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  Speaker 1: the time Missus Giles rushed back outside, she saw the
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  Speaker 1: blood running down her husband's face. Then gunfire erupted. Deputy
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  Speaker 1: McCormick was killed. Constable Pittman escaped. Reporters estimated that more
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  Speaker 1: than two two hundred and fifty armed men joined the
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  Speaker 1: manhunt that followed, sweeping through fields, river bottoms, and roads
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  Speaker 1: near Damon Mound and the Bernard River. Washington and Osborne
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  Speaker 1: Giles were eventually cornered and killed, and the violence wasn't over.
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  Speaker 1: Authorities questioned two black men, Elijah Anderson and Jody Gordon,
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  Speaker 1: regarding allegations that they had supplied food and ammunition to
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  Speaker 1: the Guiles brothers. After questioning, the men were released. The
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  Speaker 1: following morning, Anderson and Gordon were found hanging from trees
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: near Montgomery Crossing. By then, organizations like the Ku Klux
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Klan were expanding rapidly across Texas. According to historian Katherine
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Koehler Walters, Wharton County's clan did not emerge in isolation.
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  Speaker 1: It grew from a county already shaped by plantation, wealth,
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  Speaker 1: racial hierarchy, and tightly woven networks of influence behind the
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  Speaker 1: language of morality and law in order. Walters argued that
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  Speaker 1: the clan functioned as an extension of long standing systems
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  Speaker 1: of white control, using social standing political influence intimidation and
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  Speaker 1: violence to maintain white supremacy. The historical record does not
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  Speaker 1: identify the men who lynched Elijah Anderson and Jody Gordon,
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  Speaker 1: but it does show they lived and died in a
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  Speaker 1: county where mob violence against black Texans had already occurred
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  Speaker 1: more than once, where those responsible were rarely identified, and
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  Speaker 1: where secrecy often protected the powerful, all bound together by
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  Speaker 1: their race. But even when that problem calmed some, the
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  Speaker 1: violence in Wharton County continued. Eventually, Wharton County changed, the frontier,
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  Speaker 1: gave way to highways, Horses were replaced by automobiles, and
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: as far as the law goes, posses were out, replaced
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  Speaker 1: with police, investigators, forensic laboratories, and even DNA eventually transformed
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  Speaker 1: the way crimes were solved, but still many answers refused
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  Speaker 1: to surface. On the morning of Tuesday, August ninth, nineteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty eight, twenty four year old san Juana Velasquez moreno
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  Speaker 1: known to most as Wanna, unlocked the doors of the
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  Speaker 1: quick Check drive in convenience store on a barren stretch
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  Speaker 1: of Loop Highway fifty nine. Highway fifty nine was built
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  Speaker 1: for movement and momentum. It carried truckers and farm workers,
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  Speaker 1: families headed to church, and teenagers looking for someplace else
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  Speaker 1: to be. It connected Wharton County to Houston, Victoria, and
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  Speaker 1: the Texas Mexico border, cutting through miles of rice fields
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  Speaker 1: and prairie. The highway brought opportunity to some people and
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  Speaker 1: anonymity to others. Most kept driving, but some stopped. Moments
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  Speaker 1: after they pulled back onto the highway, they were gone.
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  Speaker 1: Wanna opened the quick check at five o'clock that morning.
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  Speaker 1: Sometime between seven sixteen and seven fifty eight am, someone
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  Speaker 1: walked into the store, but they weren't looking to buy
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  Speaker 1: a coke or cigarettes. When the violence ended, approximately two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty dollars was missing from the register and
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  Speaker 1: Wanna lay behind the counter, stabbed a numerous times in
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  Speaker 1: the chest. A regular customer found her body. Born san
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  Speaker 1: Juana Velasquez on April seventh, nineteen sixty four, in Linaes, Mexico,
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  Speaker 1: Wuana was an eleven year old fifth grader when she
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  Speaker 1: moved to Wharton with her family in nineteen seventy five.
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  Speaker 1: She was a devoted daughter, a loving sister, and someone
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  Speaker 1: with an unmistakably gentle nature. She believed in treating people
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  Speaker 1: with compassion, avoided conflict whenever she could, and carried herself
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  Speaker 1: with a quiet patience that put others at ease. Friends
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  Speaker 1: and family remembered her warmth, her optimism, and the way
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  Speaker 1: she always seemed to see the good in others. Wana
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  Speaker 1: simply wanted the people around her to be happy. She
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  Speaker 1: dreamed of seeing more of the world someday, but more
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  Speaker 1: than anything, she dreamed of building a family of her own. Eventually,
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  Speaker 1: Wana found love. She married Pablo Moreno in Wharton on
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  Speaker 1: February second, nineteen eighty five. Together they settled into a modest,
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  Speaker 1: two bedroom cottage on Colorado Street, the kind of small
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  Speaker 1: working class house built for ordinary people building ordinary lives.
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  Speaker 1: There was a patch of grass out front, a narrow
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  Speaker 1: driveway running alongside it, and less than a thousand square
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  Speaker 1: feet of space meant for beginnings. She made it a
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  Speaker 1: point to come home for lunch after every morning shift
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  Speaker 1: at the convenience store, and of all the hopes she
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  Speaker 1: carried for the future, becoming a mother mattered most. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't a grand ambition, Tajuana. Building a life filled with
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  Speaker 1: love was enough That future shattered. Somewhere around eight o'clock
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  Speaker 1: on the morning of August ninth, nineteen eighty eight, Noami
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  Speaker 1: Velasquez had planned to stop by the Quick Check before
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  Speaker 1: heading into Houston, hoping to surprise her older sister at work. Instead,
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  Speaker 1: as she approached the store, she saw police cars, an ambulance,
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  Speaker 1: and a crowd gathering outside. She assumed their had been
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  Speaker 1: some sort of emergency. Then she learned the truth. In
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  Speaker 1: an instant, A normal Tuesday morning became a nightmare. It
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  Speaker 1: was a nightmare Juana's family never woke up from. For
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  Speaker 1: the people of Wharton, it was a shocking crime. In
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty eight, the town had fewer than nine thousand residents.
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  Speaker 1: The quick Check wasn't simply a convenience store. It was
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  Speaker 1: a part of everyday life, a place to stop before work,
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  Speaker 1: grab a cup of coffee, by a newspaper, or catch
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  Speaker 1: up with neighbors. In twenty twenty four, more than three
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  Speaker 1: decades after one of Alasquez Moreno was murdered, her family
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  Speaker 1: obtained copies of a long forgotten court record. What they
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  Speaker 1: discovered was devastating. For years, they had believed the investigation
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  Speaker 1: had simply gone cold. It hadn't. The court record revealed
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  Speaker 1: that investigators had identified a prime sub inspect, and that
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  Speaker 1: he had been indicted not once, but twice for Wuana's murder.
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  Speaker 1: The man lived in the community and was approximately twenty
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  Speaker 1: one years old when Wana was killed. An initial capital
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: murder charge was dismissed in nineteen ninety. Less than two
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  Speaker 1: years later, in nineteen ninety two, a Wharton County grand
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  Speaker 1: jury indicted him again. The case had not disappeared. It
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: had continued through the court system. Attorneys had filed motions
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and a grand jury hurt evidence. By January nineteen ninety four,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the suspect's attorney was asking the court to dismiss the case,
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  Speaker 1: arguing that their client's constitutional right to a speedy trial
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  Speaker 1: had been violated. Behind closed courtroom doors, a prosecution had
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: been underway, yet the people who had lost Wana knew
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: none of Itjuana's parents and siblings had lived in Wharton
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  Speaker 1: County since the mid nineteen seventies. They weren't difficult to find,
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  Speaker 1: but according to the family, no one ever told them
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  Speaker 1: a suspect had been identified, let alone indicted. No one
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: told them the charges had later been dismissed. While the
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: murder case stalled, the suspect continued to accumulate criminal convictions,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: including drug offenses and an assault involving serious bodily injury.
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  Speaker 1: For a family that had spent decades searching for justice,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: it felt less like a breakthrough than another loss. In
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a public statement, they wrote that they no longer believed
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  Speaker 1: there would be justice for Wana on earth. Their faith,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: they said, rested with a higher court. Twenty seven months later,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: another case unfolded inside another small convenience store, another murder,
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  Speaker 1: and another family left searching for answers. Denevang is a
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  Speaker 1: unincorporated farming community in southern Wharton County, about fifteen miles
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  Speaker 1: south of El Campo along State Highway seventy one and
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  Speaker 1: around ninety miles southwest of Houston. Founded in eighteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: four by Danish immigrants seeking affordable farmland on the Texas
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  Speaker 1: coastal prairie, the settlement took its name from the Danish
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: words for Danish field. For generations, residents preserved the language, traditions, churches,
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  Speaker 1: and customs they brought with them from Denmark, earning Danavang
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  Speaker 1: the nickname the Danish capital of Texas. By nineteen ninety
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: only sixty one people officially lived there. It remained a
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  Speaker 1: quiet agricultural community surrounded by rice fields, cotton grain, sorghum,
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  Speaker 1: and cattle pasture. There was no city government, no downtown district,
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  Speaker 1: and only one traffic light. Life revolved around farms, churches, schools,
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  Speaker 1: and families that had often known one another for generations.
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  Speaker 1: Born on February tenth, nineteen seventy five, Rosemary Diez was
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: one of five children born to Pedro and Maria Diez.
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  Speaker 1: She grew up in the close knit farming communities of
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  Speaker 1: southern Wharton County, where family was at the center of
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: daily life. In the fall of nineteen ninety, Rosemary was
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  Speaker 1: a sophomore at El Campo High School, a member of
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the National Honor Society in the choir, and a flute player.
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  Speaker 1: Teachers remembered her as responsible, conscientious, and mature beyond her years.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, she already knew exactly what she wanted to be.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Rosemary wanted to work with kids as a teacher. She
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  Speaker 1: was the kind of student adults trusted, and the kind
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: of daughter parents worried about a little less because she
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: could be counted on to do the right thing. Like
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: many teenagers, Rosemary was beginning to experience a little independence.
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  Speaker 1: She had recently started a part time job at Dane's
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  Speaker 1: Country Store in Danavang. She'd been working there for less
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: than two weeks, and as one of her first real jobs,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: it represented both responsibility and a little more freedom. She
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: was earning her own money, learning how to deal with customers,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: and taking another small step toward adulthood. Despite that growing independence,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: family remained the center of Rosemary's world. One of her
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: sisters had recently given birth. The baby quickly became the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: center of attention in the Diaz family, and Rosemary was
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: no exception. She loved kids, as it was like many
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: proud young aunts, she looked for every opportunity she could
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  Speaker 1: find to spend time with her new niece. On a
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  Speaker 1: November night in nineteen ninety, Rosemary reported to work at
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  Speaker 1: Dane's Country Store. The small convenience store sat alongside Highway
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  Speaker 1: seventy one and served local farmers, ranchers, other residents, and
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  Speaker 1: folks passing through the area. It wasn't a large business
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  Speaker 1: by any means. Rather, it was the kind of place
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  Speaker 1: where customers often knew the person behind the counter, and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: where a fifteen year old working her first job did
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: not seem unusual. Rosemary was a little disappointed that night,
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  Speaker 1: as she had wanted to go to a dance nearby.
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  Speaker 1: During her shift that evening, Rosemary telephoned home. There was
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: nothing unusual about the call. She was simply wanting to
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  Speaker 1: see her new niece. Rosemary asked whether her sister could
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  Speaker 1: bring the baby by the store before her shift ended
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: so she could spend a few minutes with her. It
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: was a regular conversation, the kind of exchange families have
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: every day. Nothing about it suggested it would become one
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: of the last known conversations Rosemary Diez would ever have
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  Speaker 1: with the people who loved her. At seven forty five
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  Speaker 1: pm on Saturday, November twenty fourth, nineteen ninety, Rosemary Diez
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: spoke with her mother on the telephone from work. Before
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: hanging up, she mentioned that a man had walked into
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the store. Within the next seven minutes, something went terribly wrong.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: At seven fifty two, customers entered Dan's Country Store, but
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: no one was there. Rosemary, who was supposed to be
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: working the counter, was nowhere to be found. One of
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: the customers called the Wharton County Sheriff's office. A little
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: after eight o'clock. Deputy's Mark Tierina and Daniel Merrick arrived
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  Speaker 1: and found Rosemary's vehicle still parked outside the store. Inside
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  Speaker 1: the vehicle were personal belongings Rosemary normally would have taken
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: with her inside the store. Her purse remained, as did
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: a boombox she often carried with her. There were no
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: major signs of a struggle inside the store. However, the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: soda fountain near the counter, not far from the register,
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  Speaker 1: appeared to have been moved slightly out of place. A
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: leg on it was also slightly bent. The bottom drawer
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: of a filing cabinet in the store near Rosemary's belongings
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  Speaker 1: was dented in something that wasn't there before. But beyond
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: those two details, everything seemed normal. There were no cameras,
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  Speaker 1: nothing but the scene itself to rely on clues that
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: pointed to what happened, and there were virtually none of those. Later,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: store owner Sherry Nielsen confirmed that no cash was missing
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: from the register, no merchandise missing from the store, and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: no gas missing from the pumps that was unaccounted for.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: Deputies did find something incredibly bizarre, a polaroid photograph of
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: Rosemary with her name and a date written on it
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  Speaker 1: in red marker. The date was eleven, twenty five, nineteen ninety,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: which was the following day. A man in an eye
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: patch nicknamed one Eyed Joe, had taken the photo. Investigators
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: later discovered, and he was found to have had nothing
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to do with Rosemary's disappearance. The teenager was close to
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: her family, She had school friends and a new job
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: she was excited about. Investigators quickly began treating her disappearance
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: as suspicious. It was virtually impossible to even entertain the
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: thought that Rosemary had vanished of her own free will.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: That considered almost inevitable. It was theorized that someone passing
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: through had taken her, possibly they believed a serial killer.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: As words spread through dnevang El Campo and the surrounding
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: farming communities, residents joined the search. Volunteers checked roads, fields, ditches, creeks,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: vacant sheds, barns and houses, and remote rural areas. The
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: FBI aided in the searches and investigation, but like local authorities,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: came up short on clues, let alone evidence. Law enforcement
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: followed every lead they could. Neighbors watched for anything unusual.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Days became weeks, Weeks turned into months, months became years.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: Over the course of those years, her sisters remarried, but
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: convinced Rosemary was still alive would come home. They kept
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: their maiden names so she could easily find them, But
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Rosemary Diez never came home. No solid lead ever emerged.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: The case had gone cold practically from the get go.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: Then more than two decades later, everything changed. An entire
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: generation had grown up. Since fifteen year old Rosemary Diez
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: walked into work at Dane's Country Store and never came home.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: For twenty five years, her family had lived with uncertainty.
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen, after sharing a page dedicated to Rosemary's
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: case on her Facebook page, Melissa Gonzalez, her cousin, got
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a cryptic message. After going back and forth several times,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the woman on the other end told Melissa she had
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: information that would give the family answers, but for what
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: seemed like an a eternity, she avoided saying exactly what
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: those answers might be. Melissa and her mother, Rosemary's cousin,
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: turned to Wharton County Sheriff's Office investigators, who contacted the woman,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: whose name was Benita. Her mother, who was on her
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: death bed, had prompted her to message the Diaz family
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: with the information about Rosemary, Investigators soon learned what had
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: happened to her. Benita's aunt was married to a man
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: named Frank Merlos Rodriguez Junior, who was about twenty five
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: years old at the time. One night in late November
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety, Benita's aunt had told family, Rodriguez came
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: home late at about two or three in the morning,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: grabbed some shovels out of the backyard shed, and left
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the house. He was gone a few hours. When he returned,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Rodriguez took off his clothes and put them in the washer,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: something he never did. The clothing was muddy. When she
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: asked him why he was washing clothes, he began crying.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: He told her he'd done something he shouldn't have. Rodriguez
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: said he'd picked up a girl and done something terrible
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: to her. After he had done his worst, he took
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: her to Matagorda County and buried her on property owned
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: by his family, a place Rodriguez said where he used
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: to hunt near a camper trailer. Later, his wife saw
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: him removing the carpets from his vehicle. No single relative
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: knew the entire story, but together their accounts convinced investigators
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: the case deserved another look because everyone in the family
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: was scared of the man, as he was extremely controlling
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: and violent, both verbally and physically. Twenty five years had
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: passed before anyone had the courage to speak up. The
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: man had recently died following a battle with cancer. On
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: June ninth, twenty fifteen, Wharton County Sheriff's Office deputies partnered
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: with their counterparts in Matagorda County and Texas Equisearch. The
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: information led them to a remote rural property near the
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Wharton Matagorda County line, belonging to the suspect's family, who
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: cooperated with the investigation. On November twenty three, twenty fifteen,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: search teams began combing the property. There were sixty acres,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: so figuring out where to look was overwhelming, but viewing
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Google Earth images from nineteen ninety five the farthest back
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: they could find, Equisearch was able to locate a small
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: white dot that might be a trailer. It was only
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: six miles from Dan's country store, the last known location
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: of fifteen year old Rosemary Diaz. They decided that area
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: was the best bet, and after convincing authorities, that's where
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: they started. During the first day of the search, they
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: discovered a personal item Rosemary had been wearing the night
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: she disappeared, an amethyst ring with a heart shaped stone,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: a cherished kin signora gift from her family. The discovery
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: strengthened investigator's belief they were searching in the right place,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: but daylight ran out before they could continue. The following morning,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: November twenty fourth, twenty fifteen, the twenty fifth anniversary of
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: Rosemary's disappearance, to the day, searchers returned while operating excavation equipment,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Texas ECHI Search founder Tim Miller uncovered the skeletal remains, clothing,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and jewelry of an unidentified female buried in a shallow grave.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: For Rosemary's family, the discovery brought two emotions at once.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: For twenty five years, hope had survived because uncertainty allowed
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: it to. As long as Rosemary remained missing, there was
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: always the possibility, however small, that she was still alive somewhere.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Those hopes were now dashed. Nothing was official yet, but
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: her family knew. The remains were sent for forensic examination
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and DNA testing, which took almost nine months. In August
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, authorities announced the results. The remains were officially
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: confirmed as Rosemary Diaz. When her sister Irma learned the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: suspect's family had waited until after his death to come forward,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: she said, it's very sad that they held on to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: that information. They could have at least called us to
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: give us peace of mind. Investigators didn't publicly identify the suspect,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: not until ABC thirteen Houston reporter Kevin Quinn pushed them
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: to speak about the case. They said that they did
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: not believe Frank Murlos Rodriguez Junior was connected to any
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: other unsolved murders. For Rosemary's family, the answers came too
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: late to bring justice, and there were more questions anyway.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: Did Rodriguez act alone? What exactly had he done to Rosemary?
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Her killer will never have to face what he did,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: but there's a chance whoever killed Juana Moreno two years
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: earlier might If you have any information about the murder
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: of San Juana Velasquez Moreno, please contact the Wharton County
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Sheriff's Office at nine seventy nine five three two one
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: five five zero. On the next episode of Gone Cold,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: Texas True Crime, other crimes that darkly define Wharton County.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: If you'd like to join gon Cold's mission to s
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: dyinalyite on unsolved homicides and missing persons cases, get the
• 33:04
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• 33:08
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• 33:13
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• 33:16
  Speaker 1: rating and written review on Apple Podcasts or wherever else
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: you listen. However you choose to support Gone Cold, we
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: appreciate you. Thanks for listening, y'all,