Press Coverage

Family Of Convicted Man Moves Away To Avoid Harassment

By Isabel Rojas

Al Dia

Since one of his brothers was arrested on murder charges in 1996, the family's life was made unbearable by insults, harassment and even threats by the people close to the deceased who the authorities maintain was murdered by Alberto Sifuentes and Jesus Ramirez during a robbery of a convenience store in Littlefield, Texas.

They were so scared that they did not feel secure in the nearby town of Muleshoe, so they picked up their belongings, left their jobs and abandoned their homes, they said.

Rosalinda Sifuentes now lives in Lubbock. Santiago Sifuentes works on a farm in the state of Arkansas and Juan Sifuentes is in Georgia.

"I did not want any problems. I have my family and the least I want is more tragedies" referring to the presumed threats by the family of Evangelina "Angie" Cruz, the woman that was murdered, supposedly by his brother during the robbery of August 6, 1996.

The Cruz family was not available to Al Dia personnel to tell their version.

The event that took the course of the family into a constant nightmare goes back to that night on which Alberto and his friend Jesus Ramirez went out to have fun with a female friend. On their way back from the dance and having had a few drinks in a bar in Lubbock, they were stopped by the police down the highway because their car had some of the characteristics of the vehicle used by the men that had committed the robbery at the Jolly Roger store and taken the life of the clerk, Ms. Cruz.

From that moment on the two Mexican immigrants, one from Tamaulipas and the other from Chihuahua were the main suspects of the crime. It is a stigma that they have not been able to forget and that eventually brought about their sentence of life in prison.

It looks like their last hope is a hearing in an appeals court that a law firm contacted by the officials of the General Mexican Consulate got for them. The hearing is set for January 10. They have been denied two appeals.

The defense as well as the Mexican government officials are sure that Sifuentes and Ramirez are innocent, and want their release after the appeals hearing or to give them a new hearing.

"We have testimony that shows that they are innocent and we are going to prove it. If nothing happens in the next hearing, then we will take it to federal court," said Ronald W. Breaux, attorney for Haynes & Boone LLP, a firm that offered to defend the immigrants for free. It is obvious to them that they are innocent.

Sifuentes and Ramirez were found guilty based on the testimony of two women who placed them at the scene where the crime was committed. According to the records, the authorities did not find any DNA or finger prints of the suspects at the place of the crime and never found the gun that was used to commit the crime. The investigators said that they found a foot print over the counter of someone wearing tennis shoes. Sifuentes and Ramirez were wearing cowboy boots when they were stopped by the police early that morning.

The attorneys and the consulate have obtained the sworn testimony of three people that place the immigrants at a bar in Lubbock at the time of the crime and one other witness that swore having heard a cell partner in a jail of that region confess to be the true perpetrator of Ms. Cruz's murder. They have discovered a video at another store that puts in doubt Brenda Ayala's version of the story. She is one of the district attorney's witnesses who supposedly saw the two men in town at the time of the murder. This is the evidence that they want to present during the appeals hearing.

Police who have been close to the investigation say they are firm in their original conclusions.

"The only thing I have to say is that they were sentenced to life in prison because they are the killers," said Sal Abreo, member of the Texas Rangers, the investigative department of the local authorities that concluded the immigrants killed Ms. Cruz.

And even though the attorneys place in doubt the testimony of the women who accuse their clients, at least one of them says she stands by her testimony.

"I saw them the day of the murder," said Ayala this Wednesday during a telephone interview with Al Dia.