Introducing: American Homicide
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It's called American Homicide. I'm here today with my co-host from There and Gone, Ben Fetterman, and the host of American Homicide, Sloane Glass. Hey, guys. Hey, Andrea. Hey, Dre. Ben, you and I worked very closely on There and Gone, and you've been producing and writing American Homicide books.

What do you feel like there and gone listeners will appreciate about American Homicide? So American Homicide explores some of the most mysterious and iconic murder cases in our country. And the podcast takes listeners to the local communities where these crimes took place.

I think what's interesting about both these podcasts is that in There and Gone, Andre and I thought we understood the landscape of Philadelphia. You know, we both grew up there, and it's a place that we still call home. But as a part of our investigation...

I think we've both reflected and learned there was so much about our city that we didn't understand. The other thing that we took out of There and Gone is we explored the impact that Danielle and Richard's disappearance had on

on both their families and the communities they grew up in. Ben, I think that you guys have been tasked with a very difficult challenge with There and Gone of going into an unsolved crime and an American homicide case

We're walking you through these stories after an arrest. And I think what stays unsolved with American Homicide is the long-term impact that these cases have on the communities. What do you feel is unique about American Homicide as a true crime show? I'm such a fan of true crime podcasts.

And what makes American Homicide different from anything else I've seen out there? American Homicide, it's not just a retelling. It's a reexamination of infamous true crime stories through firsthand accounts. You are hearing from law enforcement who is behind the investigations. You are hearing from lawyers. You are hearing from judges. You are hearing from victims and their friends and family.

And I think what makes it so significant and special really plays off of when you are covering a story, it can be the same crime in a different location and it will have a totally different impact depending on the community. What do you mean by that?

So I think depending on where you are and what your community looks like, it's going to inevitably have a different effect on how you see the crime. I learned this as a local news reporter and later as a national news reporter, that you are dealing with very different circumstances wherever you are in the country. When a crime takes place in, let's say, a small town, what comes to mind for me in my personal experience as a journalist, I think of in Delphi, Indiana,

There was a case that had gone cold for six years. Two girls had been killed, and it was a town of 1,300 people. That's different from when a crime like that happens in a city. The first story that we have in American Homicide, it made me feel that same way. So tell me a little bit about the episode that we're going to hear. Yeah, so this is part one of the Father's Day Murders episode.

Now, you just have to imagine, it's Father's Day, you go to your parents' house for dinner, you open the door, and you find your mom, dad, and brother beaten to death. And that's what happened to a woman in the small town of El Rancho, New Mexico. And this is a case with no arrest for years. The main suspect for a substantial amount of time was the daughter who had found her family. Everyone is looking at her like she was involved.

It just leaves you wondering, what was going on here? I'm so excited for this series, Sloan. You're phenomenal. The storytelling is fantastic. The episodes that I have heard, you are just at every twist and turn, just on the edge of your seat. Here's American Homicide, Father's Day Murders, Part 1.

It was Father's Day 2011 when Cherie Ortiz walked into her parents' home and found the bodies of her mother and father. They had been shot in the head and it had occurred sometime earlier in the day.

The brutality was unspeakable. The hunt to find the killer would tear the community apart and devastate Cherie. I really do have hope this is going to get solved. My name is Sloan Glass. I'm a journalist who covered the Long Island serial killer, the Delphi, Indiana murders, and many other high-profile true crime cases.

And now, I'm the host of American Homicide, a podcast where we take you across the country to investigate some of America's deadliest crimes. We'll explore how these murders are shaped by their unique landscapes and how these tragedies have shaped the fabric of these American communities forever. Today, we're in the tiny village of El Rancho, New Mexico for part one of the Father's Day Murders on American Homicide.

As a note, this podcast contains subject matter which may not be suitable for all audiences. Discretion is advised.

Let me paint a picture for you. Santa Fe, New Mexico is called the city different for its rich culture and diverse community. Native American ancestries blend with Spanish culture in a state with one of America's richest landscapes. Northern New Mexico in particular, it's a very unique place. It's beautiful. Alex Tomlin was a local TV news reporter who lives in the area.

It has impeccable weather and the mountains are incredible. The region is home to natural hot springs and wild rivers. You can drive an hour north and go whitewater rafting or you can go down to White Sands and enjoy that. But kind of on the outskirts of Santa Fe, you get a lot of the smaller communities. And one such place is the tiny village of El Rancho.

The predominantly Hispanic community is about 20 miles from Santa Fe and is built around co-op farming and churches. It's a lot of people who have kind of grown there, have families there, kind of all know each other. But it's also a desolate place. One of the things about New Mexico is it's so open. When you go to someone's home, often they have a significant size property. There's not neighbors very close.

And even though the homes are all spread out across the desert... Everyone kind of knows each other, but there is an interesting dynamic here. As much as it's known for its beauty, it's also known for the crime. The tragic murders on Father's Day 2011 would stretch the fabric of El Rancho to its limits.

So June 18th, 2011 seemed like any normal night. Cherie Ortiz had dinner plans with her parents, Lloyd and Dixie. Cherie Ortiz, she lived on the property with the Ortizes. Her parents and brother lived in a large one-story house and Cherie and her husband lived in an RV next door.

Even though there's a fence around their spacious property, the family had an open-door policy. Anyone could come in, have dinner at their table, or spend time with them. They were just kind of a good family in this community that was very tight-knit.

Lloyd Ortiz was a man who loved to use his hands. He owned his own ceramic tile business. His craftsmanship turned up in homes and even luxury hotels all over northern New Mexico. He was an incredibly loving father, a hardworking man who provided for his family, his wife, Dixie. They sound like a perfect pair.

Dixie was passionate about working with the elderly and the disabled. She was an activities director at a local retirement home, and she fostered children with special needs. They took in a child who had chicken baby syndrome and adopted him as their own, raised that child, loved that child. That child's name was Steven. Steven had special needs from his early life injuries.

His brain never developed beyond that of a nine-year-old. But he matured into a young man that his family called the gentle giant. He loved to play drums, ride his ATV, and fish with Lloyd. They were just really giving, loving people, very northern New Mexico, hardworking, you know, love the land, love the culture kind of thing. Since it was Father's Day, Cherie Ortiz whipped up a plate of homemade enchiladas for dinner. It was her gift.

Just before 7 o'clock that evening, she took them and walked next door to her parents. Even though it was June, white Christmas icicle lights still hung on the gutters of her parents' home. Inside, the walls were adorned with crucifixes and some of Lloyd's handmade tiles. Cherie said she walks in and realizes something's very wrong. She found her mother in bed. Her mother's head was pretty damaged. She thought someone maybe had shot her.

She then went into the kitchen area and found what she thought was her father on the kitchen floor. The body was just so impacted by what was used against them. There's these two bodies. There's blood everywhere. She goes screaming out of the house. And for her husband, again, they lived on the property, so it was pretty close. Cherie's husband, Jesse, ran right over to investigate.

Her husband then comes in the house and he realizes it's not her father on the kitchen floor, it's actually her brother. And that's when he starts searching around and finds her father outside, right outside the back door, kind of in the field there. Lloyd's body was found on a cinder block path that connected the Ortiz back porch to their fenced-in yard. He was face down, wearing only his underwear. His eyeglasses sat just inches away.

Covering his head was some green shrubbery. By now, Cherie was on the phone. Santa Fe 911, where is your emergency? They're dead. They're dead. They're dead. They've been dead since the morning. What is your name? Cherie. Cherie frantically told the 911 operator that her mother, father, and brother were shot to death. I just walked in their house, and everybody's shot in the...

This was Cherie's second attempt at a 911 call. Since Cherie and her parents' homes were out in the middle of the desert, her cell reception was spotty. Imagine the panic, the fear that your call would drop again when you're trying to get emergency help for your family...

And she didn't know where the perpetrator was or if they were still on the property. And then there's another problem. El Rancho is way off the beaten path.

which delays the response time for law enforcement. With no local police force of their own, the New Mexico State Police were dispatched to investigate.

Sharice stayed on the phone for nearly 20 minutes before officers arrived. Oh, yeah.

All units are going as fast as they can to get there. I'm going to walk to the gate and wait for them. I'm, like, too nervous just sitting in my yard.

My name is Paul Chavez. I was a member of the full-time crimes unit as an agent with the New Mexico State Police. The 200 homicide cases Officer Chavez worked in his career didn't prepare him for what he saw inside the Ortiz house. In this case, the magnitude of the violence involved was the worst that I had seen in my career. The brutality was unspeakable.

Sherry Ortiz had found her parents and her adopted stepbrother dead within the residence. She reported that they had been shot in the head and it had occurred sometime earlier in the day.

It turns out that although Cherie said she didn't see who committed these murders, she did hear something. There was reportedly gunshots heard the previous night in the area. Now, hearing gunshots isn't entirely unusual in New Mexico. But Cherie and her parents' homes sit on a dead-end street in the rural New Mexico desert.

It's a remote area with unpaved roads and no nearby streetlights. Their nearest neighbor is about 50 yards up the road. Inside the Ortiz home, Officer Chavez and his team assess the situation. Once I enter into the residence, there is a master bedroom immediately to the left as you walk in. And that is where the first victim, identified as Dixie Ortiz, is in her bed and her nightgown under the blankets. Dixie was found clutching her pillow.

Stephen, her adopted brother, lay face down in a pool of blood, wearing only his underwear.

Police noted that he took the brunt of the attack. This scene was absolutely brutal. Stephen was 21 years old at the time of his murder, and based on his injuries, police believe that he tried to fight off the killer before ultimately losing that battle. The blood continued from that area out the back door where the third victim, Lloyd Ortiz, was found outside the back porch. There was a significant amount of bloodshed indicating that he did sustain some massive trauma.

And there was also shrubbery from a nearby bush that was covering his head. That's two bloodied bodies inside the home and one outside. And then something else stood out to law enforcement. There was a small marijuana grow on the property. It was fenced off and padlocked. They did have a medical marijuana cart for Stephen.

for some of the medical conditions he had. But none of the 17 marijuana plants appeared to be disturbed. In fact, nothing seemed to be stolen or even out of place. On the kitchen table, in plain view, sat Lloyd's wallet containing hundreds of dollars. This did not look like a robbery. It looked like a case of anger.

A lot of anger based on the brutality that occurred. It was a father's day to forget for residents in this tiny suburb of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lloyd and Dixie Ortiz were pillars of the tight-knit El Rancho community. They were quick to lend a helping hand to others in need. So who was angry enough to harm them and why? At California Psychics, we know you have your doubts about, well, psychics.

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Toyota, let's go places. Shuri Ortiz lived in an RV right next door to her parents' house.

on the same property. Both homes sat on a sprawling lot surrounded by hills in the dusty El Rancho, New Mexico desert. On the evening of Father's Day 2011, Cherie walked into her parents' house and found her mother, father, and brother savagely murdered. Like many others in the community, Pastor John Trujillo was in shock. I get a phone call. They call me, PJ, Pastor John. Says, PJ, they found Stephen Trujillo

Lloyd and Dixie dead. I said, "What are you talking about? Was it a car accident? What happened?" He says, "No, it seems like they were murdered in their home. You need to get down here right away." And as I drive up, the community's already showing up. State police are there. And about that time,

Cherie made her way out and she was just in tears and tears and tears and just, "Pastor John, my family's dead. My family's dead. Somebody murdered my family. Somebody killed my family." How do you handle that? What do you do? I mean, can you imagine the emotional and physical and just spiritual distraught that you would face? Nobody can prepare for that. I don't care. Nobody's prepared to walk into a scene like that, especially the daughter.

The family was grieving and they were mourning. It's El Rancho. This isn't supposed to happen in a community like this. People are speculating that could this have happened from the community? Did somebody come here from somewhere else? Was it a family member? Was it a friend? Was it a robbery that went wrong? You know, why, why, why? It was like, okay.

Since El Rancho didn't have a police force of their own, the New Mexico State Police handled the investigation. By morning, the police still didn't know much. How in the world could something like this happen? You know, one person dead, okay, but when there's three...

It raises a lot, a lot of questions. Police believe that three victims were shot to death inside their home, but nothing appeared to be missing. Investigators wondered if it was a murder or a murder-suicide.

Officer Paul Chavez was one of the first responders. My role primarily is to process and document the crime scene and try and make sense of what occurred there. But the severity of the crime scene limited what he was able to do. You can't disturb the body much. And with the amount of bloodshed that was present, we weren't able to assess the wounds as well as we would like to have been able to. So originally, the police believed all three victims were shot to death.

But the results of the autopsies for each victim revealed something far more personal. If these were in fact not gunshot wounds, they were actually lacerations that were penetrating with a blunt object. Clearly, something was missing. When the police returned to the scene of the crime, they found a five-pound pickaxe lying on the ground just over the fence of the adjacent property.

and the pickaxe contained bloodstains. What the pickaxe did provide us was DNA from all three victims. So we unequivocally had our murder weapon. However, we were unable to forensically link a suspect to the pickaxe. So what does that mean? A murder weapon with DNA of the victims, but nothing to indicate a suspect? It could mean a number of things. That maybe they were wearing gloves or they covered their hands in some way or shape or form. And just sometimes...

the lab just can't find it. It's not 100% certainty that they're going to be able to find DNA when something is touched. There's a chance that we will, but it doesn't always work out that way.

So the one thing about the Ortiz murder was really the pressure on the police. Reporter Alex Tomlin covered the story for a local TV station. There was an incredible amount of pressure from that small-knit community, but also the surrounding communities. And so there was a lot of pressure on them to get who did it, make it a clean investigation, and let's get this person behind bars. And I'm sure at times that pressure was overwhelming. The people of El Rancho couldn't shake the fear.

that they could be next. Nobody wants to think that they're going to go to sleep and somebody who's pickaxed a couple and their son to death is going to come into their home next. They even refused to talk to TV reporters.

Not because they felt pestered, but they were fearful of their own safety. And that's the other terrifying thing. Think about the strength it takes to push that pickaxe back multiple times and pickaxe someone to death. That is cold-blooded. That is calculated. That is incredibly scary for a community because that person is dangerous.

You know, when you can't easily tie up a case like this, when you can't say, oh, it's, you know, a scorned lover or it's, you know, a drug deal gone wrong or different things like that, then it becomes a, well, am I next? You want to find who did this because you don't want the community looking at you and saying, what are you doing? Why aren't you protecting us? Why don't you have the answers?

With no suspects, a weapon and murder scene free of any DNA, investigators started to look at the person who first discovered the bodies.

That person was Sheree Ortiz. When something this horrific happens, the community wants answers, and they want them quickly, right? So you want to be able to tie a nice bow on this thing and be done with it. And Sheree and her husband seemed like that nice bow. They lived on the property. You could come up with a motive. The police wondered if Sheree and her husband Jesse knew more than they were saying.

especially after they listened back to Cherie's original 911 call. She's very frantic in that 911 call, as you can hear. She made some comments on that 911 call about, you know, they must have been shot because of how they looked. I just walked in their house and everybody was shot in the f***ing head. My brother, my dad, and my mom still in bed.

It wasn't later until the Office of the Medical Investigator determined that actually they had been pickaxed to death. "And you have no idea who would have done that?" "I don't know!" "Do you see anybody around?" "No, I didn't even look! I just freaked out!"

Desperate and upset, Cherie spent 17 minutes on that 911 call. But as investigators listened back, they zeroed in on a comment Cherie said. Now listen closely to what Cherie told the operator. They've been dead since the morning! They've been dead since the morning!

So Cherie said her parents had been dead since that morning. How did she know that? And why didn't she call 911 till 7 that evening? They 100% thought she was a main suspect.

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For months, Cherie and Jesse felt the stares and heard the whispers. Their pastor, John Trujillo, tried to be the voice of reason. I think when you have to go through that, like Jesse and Cherie did, I think it was just a reassurance that said, listen, you know, you need to do this. You need to go through this. Just cooperate with the state police, investigators, whatever you need to do, because it's just a process of elimination. They're looking for answers just as much as everybody else is.

and they need a starting point somewhere. Just go through the process, answer the questions, be honest, be truthful, and let them eliminate you, and then they can move forward from there. So there were a number of red flags that required us to investigate Cheri and Jesse to the fullest. State police agent Paul Chavez took the difficult line of questioning a mourning Cheri. Could family gain from the death of the victim? Sure they can if there's insurance policies in place.

Investigators asked about Cherie's credit card debt and the fact that she didn't pay her car loans or even the rent on her RV. And then there was this. Cherie also told investigators that she had removed $80,000 in cash from her parents' home.

But she didn't tell this to police until three days after the murders. Jesse and Cherie's involvement couldn't be ruled out. Jesse and Cherie told detectives that they were at a local casino on the night of the murders. But... There was some conflicting statements.

between Cherie and Jesse. The triple murder that rocked the close-knit village of El Rancho turned friends into enemies, families into suspects. At the time, there was a lot of speculation about her and her husband and whether or not they had been involved in this crime. Alex Tomlin worked as a reporter for a local TV station. The case was a little bit cold at this time, and we got a call saying, she's willing to talk to you.

Sheree was on the defensive and wanting to publicly clear her name. So she scheduled an interview with Alex. Sheree offered to show me the home where her parents had lived and had been murdered. Alex met Sheree at her home and interviewed her just steps away from where Lloyd, Dixie, and Stephen were murdered.

I remember distinctly being in the kitchen and we were talking about her brother, Steven. And, you know, when the autopsy came out, he had held about a dozen or so blows, I think, about maybe 17 blows.

And I remember her talking to me about how he was such a big guy, that he was kind of a teddy bear, but he was such a big guy. And it's such a weird sensation when you're standing in someone's kitchen and you're seeing marks on the floor and you know their body had been there. And, you know, she cried a lot during that interview, understandably, but really thinking about

this young man coming out who didn't really have the cognitive ability to understand what was happening, you know, very much still a child kind of in a man's body. And to have that many blows to him, my only thought in that moment was he must have been trying to protect his parents. He must have been really scared. He must have really fought back.

And that was just so sad. It was so sad to think about those final moments and what that must have been like for him, either knowing that he was dying or knowing that something had happened to his parents. It was just really traumatic standing there and knowing this is where he died and he died in such a violent way.

With the cameras rolling, Alex asked Cherie about the investigation. I believe they're going through it with tunnel vision, just specifically focusing on us instead of the real people. I know it had to be people. How could one person do that?

So it left this very weird sensation in the community where some people were still speculating, other people really believed them. Why would they do this? Cherie said her parents had life insurance, but she could not collect that money since she and her husband were considered suspects. And without that money, Cherie said they couldn't pay their bills and worried their homes would be foreclosed. So it was really this sense from her of trying to

advocate for herself, but advocate for her parents and her brother to say, "I need to know who killed them. And at the same time, I need people to know it wasn't me." And so that was really what this conversation centered around. We could lose everything my dad worked so hard for. I actually saw like marks on the floor and different things like that where this had happened. It was a really horrific experience.

With tears in her eyes, Cherie then looked into the camera to try to clear her name and her husband Jesse's as well. It was no secret that the two were being looked at in the triple murder. But were they that desperate for money that they would murder their own family? Paul Chavez investigated.

But as the investigation dragged on, Cherie shifted the blame back on the state police. She claimed that they botched the investigation and said casino security guards or even children could have done a better job.

Against the advice of law enforcement, Sheree even set up a P.O. box where people could anonymously submit information about who might be responsible. A year after the murders, the police promised a press conference to share some breaking news on the case. But that press conference never happened. There was a lot of leads that came in that were followed up on, but

None of them panned out. A billboard even went up along a local highway with a picture of Lloyd, Dixie and Stephen that offered a $1,000 reward for information. But still, there were no arrests. That was the hardest part of this case for me, was knowing that we have not been able to bring justice for this family. And it wasn't just Cherie who was pressuring the New Mexico State Police. Here's TV reporter Alex Tomlin.

There was an incredible amount of pressure from that small knit community, but also the surrounding communities and pretty much all of the state saying, you've got to find who did this. You could not take a family who more people said nice things about and have a more awful thing happen to them. I mean, they are bludgeoned to death with a pickaxe.

Publicly, the police didn't reveal much about other potential suspects. But behind the scenes, it was a different story. Aside from Cherie and her husband Jesse, investigators interviewed numerous people. Then, 16 months after the murders, a local 23-year-old woman named Ashley Roybal got arrested. While she's in custody, she tells the police something astonishing.

Ashley tells detectives that she knows who killed Lloyd, Dixie, and Stephen Ortiz. Ashley Roybal kept quiet for 16 months.

During that time, Cherie juggled losing her mom, dad, and brother while being looked at by everyone as a suspect. All while she couldn't collect their life insurance money and was scared she'd lose everything. But now, 16 months later, Ashley was finally ready to talk? This was...

the turning point in the investigation. But would anyone believe Ashley? There's things that kind of don't match up. There's shifting stories. We just want the truth. They say the wheels of justice move very slowly. And in this case, that would prove to be an understatement. And I remember thinking, oh God, here we go again. This poor family has been through the ringer. I would have never suspected it.

that it was going to come down to this. Find out what Ashley says really happened that night on part two of the Father's Day murders. That's next time on American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us

American Homicide is hosted and written by me, Sloane Glass, and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.

The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The series is also written and produced by Todd Gans, with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunney. Our associate producer is Kristen Melchiorri. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreinchak.

Audio editing and mixing by Matt Dalvecchio. Additional editing support from Nick Arruca, Tanner Robbins, Britt Robichaux, Dave Sayah, and Patrick Walsh. American Homicide's theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of Noiser.

Music library provided by MyMusic. Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts. And please rate and review American Homicide. Your five-star review goes a long way towards helping others find this show. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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