Bizarre ax slayings case still is haunting Laredo
Gemini Walker
solved, I think this here is a case of the
foxes guarding the henhouse. I just would not be a bit
surprised to find out that the court
system in Laredo is involved in a little juvenile
prostitution and pornography on the side.
The following is brought to us courtesy of the San
Antonio Express News
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begins--------------------------------------------------
Bizarre ax slayings case still is
haunting Laredo
By Dane Schiller
Express-News Border Bureau
LAREDO — Eight years after three people
were hacked to
death in a reputed nighttime sacrifice to
Satan, the alleged
leader of the slaughter has yet to stand
trial.
This border city remains haunted by tales
of ax-wielding
teen-agers, three victims killed as they
slept, missing evidence
and alleged misdeeds by police and
prosecutors.
And the murder weapon in what a
prosecutor described as
one of Laredo's "most heinous and
horrible crimes" was used
again — to trim a courthouse Christmas
tree.
In the years since the crime, critics
still question whether
police deliberately destroyed fingerprint
evidence and whether
prosecutors gave special treatment to a
state district judge's
son.
It was Jan. 18, 1991, when two United
High School
classmates, Miguel Angel Martinez and
Miguel Angel Venegas
borrowed a double- headed ax and two
knives from Manuel
"Milo" Flores, the son of state District
Judge Manuel Flores.
Milo Flores confessed to supplying the ax
and knives and
driving the accused youths to the crime
scene. Yet he never
faced criminal charges.
Martinez, then 17, and Venegas, then 16,
went on a bloody
killing spree, according to police
reports and court records.
Shrouded in early morning darkness,
Martinez and Venegas
sneaked through the back door of the
three-bedroom home of
James Smiley, 33, a deacon at a local
Baptist church; Ruben
Martinez, 22; and Daniel Duenez, 14, and
attacked them,
according to court records and testimony.
Martinez was tried, convicted and
sentenced to death. He is
appealing to federal court. He sits on
death row — once
coming within two days of execution.
"It was a senseless and mindless thing
they did. There was
no rhyme or reason to it," Webb County
District Attorney Joe
Rubio said.
Venegas' trial has been delayed by the
juvenile justice system,
his escape from a detention center and
his subsequent
two-year secret life in Mexico.
Because he was 16 at the time of the
crime, the juvenile
justice system shields Venegas from the
death penalty and
provides for a string of hearings,
appeals and delays.
As long as he legally is considered a
juvenile, Venegas'
parents are notified of every hearing and
can stand by his side
when he appears in court.
Raul Vasquez, a county court-at- law
judge, last week
ordered that Venegas undergo another
battery of psychiatric
tests to determine whether he should be
tried as an adult.
County Attorney Homero Ramirez said he's
confident
Venegas, now 22, eventually will stand
trial as an adult.
But the process could take years.
The case has grabbed the public's
attention repeatedly.
Last year, for instance, the case broke
into public view when
three Laredo City Council members were
arrested after they
subpoenaed police officers and conducted
an inquiry into
how case evidence was handled.
They were arrested on misdemeanor
indictments obtained by
Rubio, who later dismissed the charges.
Shortly after those arrests, Rubio
testified at a hearing for
Martinez in which he was asked whether he
made any secret
deals to keep Milo Flores out of prison.
Rubio denied doing
that.
Richard Gonzalez, Venegas' attorney, said
he would challenge
everything from the way the prosecutor's
office handled the
case to the way his client was arrested
in Monterrey, Mexico.
He also said he will raise the issue of
Venegas' sanity.
"It's obvious the district attorney's
office can't handle the
case in light of the allegations that
have been raised,"
Gonzalez said of other testimony that
Rubio and the judge
were involved in a plan to shield Milo
Flores from
prosecution.
If Venegas is certified to stand trial as
an adult, Gonzalez said
he will ask for a special prosecutor,
keeping Rubio out of the
case.
"I'm not engaging in purposeful delay,"
he said after a recent
court hearing. "You've got to fight them
every step of the
way."
Jesus Torres, a Laredo homicide
investigator who was
among the first to arrive at the crime
scene, said he still has
not put the case to rest.
"The way they were killed, you try to
think of their last
moments, what they were feeling and what
was going on,"
Torres said. "It's one of those crimes
that would remain on
anybody's mind."
An aging police videotape kept in a vault
at the Webb County
Courthouse shows the victims died where
they slept.
Jesse Garcia, who knew the victims and
their accused killers,
discovered the bodies after climbing
through a broken
window and stepping through the darkened
house. Garcia
went to the house to find out why Smiley
had not shown up
for work that day.
"To commit a crime that bloody, it was
horrible," Garcia said.
In 1991, Venegas admitted to a
court-appointed psychiatrist
that he prayed and danced to Satan. He
said he heard voices
in his mind, and he was seen slithering
like a snake in his
juvenile detention cell.
The doctor's report concluded Venegas was
competent but
violent and suffered from psychotic
episodes.
"He began to believe that Satan was the
king of the Earth,"
the psychiatrist noted.
Venegas' trial was further delayed by his
escape from a
Laredo juvenile detention center in
December 1992.
He was arrested two years later in
Monterrey, where he was
working under an alias at an upscale
hotel. Mexican
authorities captured Venegas and handed
him over to Laredo
police.
Smiley's father, Donald Smiley, said he
wants Venegas tried
and convicted so he won't be able to hurt
anyone else.
"Life in prison is not going to bring
back my son," Smiley
said by phone from his home in Missouri.
"It would ease my
mind knowing he could never get out and
hurt anyone again."
Martinez is asking U.S. District Judge
George Kazen to throw
out his conviction based on a host of
irregularities, including
alleged lies about blood evidence,
missing fingerprints, and a
confession that he contends was coerced
by Laredo police.
The appeal also contends that ex- Bexar
County serologist
Fred Zain, who was fired from his job
after questions arose
about his work in Texas and West
Virginia, lied about testing
the murder weapons for blood.
Zain faced criminal charges in both
states, but the charges
were dismissed or he was acquitted at
trial.
The appeal also alleges secret efforts to
protect Milo Flores.
After the murders, police reports show,
Smiley's sedan was
stolen and parked at a local hospital
where Flores worked in a
blood laboratory.
Rubio and Flores strongly deny
accusations of any deals.
Rubio said the younger Flores was not
offered immunity, but
that his testimony put the killers at the
scene of the crime and
the weapons in their hands.
"We had an accomplice who was with these
people who
testified for the state," Rubio said. "If
you eliminate the fact
that he's the son of a state district
judge, it's something that
happens all the time."
In a confession to police, Martinez
quoted Venegas as saying:
"Satan wanted their souls."
The two were caught after Venegas bragged
about the
killings at a video arcade.
"He also told me he believed in the devil
and needed two more
kills," testified Abdon Ibarra III, a
friend who talked to
Venegas at the arcade.
Donald Smiley said he doubts he would
come to Laredo for a
second trial involving his son's death.
"I'm not sure I want to come down there
and open old
wounds," Smiley said. "With the grace of
God and the law,
hopefully they'll find him guilty."
Saturday, Nov 7, 1998
...geminiwalker
chu...@earthlink.net
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