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Old August 22nd, 2005 #68
S.-O.
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.Massacre case moves forward -- Trials to begin for 12 murder suspects
March 16,2004
Sarah Ovaska
The Monitor


EDINBURG — A 20-year-old Donna man will be the first of 12 alleged Tri-City Bomber gang members to be tried for the drug-related massacre of six men last year in Edinburg.

Juan Raul Navarro Ramirez, who turned 20 last week, was in Judge Rudy Delgado’s 93rd state District Court on Monday for a pretrial hearing, along with Humberto "Gallo" Garza, 29, and Reymundo "Kito" Sauceda, 28, who are also facing the death penalty in connection with the deaths.

Ramirez, the youngest of the accused, is facing the death penalty for the brutal Jan. 5 2003, shooting deaths of six men in neighboring houses on Monte Cristo Road. Only 18 at the time of the shootings, Ramirez is thought to be one of the shooters, said Cregg Thompson, one of the two prosecutors handling the case.

Ramirez has pleaded innocent to the charges and has been in the Hidalgo County Jail since Jan. 30, 2003, on a $30 million bail.

"You’ve been in custody for a long time," Delgado told Ramirez in court. "You’re going to remain" there.

On Jan. 5, 2003, men wearing ski masks and a jacket with "Police" printed on them stormed two dilapidated homes on the 2900 block of Monte Cristo Road demanding drugs and money, according to police accounts. The bodies of four men were found in a smaller house on the property, one body was found outside the smaller home, and the body of a sixth man was found inside a larger home. Most of the men were shot in the head and face to the extent that the bodies were difficult to identify.

Killed in the shooting were brothers Jerry Eugene Hidalgo, 24, and Ray Hidalgo, 30, who lived at the houses; Jimmy Edward Almendariz, 22, brothers Juan Delgado Jr., 32, and Juan Delgado III, 20; and Ruben Rolando Castillo, 32. Jerry Hidalgo was released from state prison the day prior to his death, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Hidalgo’s mother, Rosie Gutierrez, was the lone survivor of the attack.

At least two of the victims were members of the Texas Chicano Brotherhood gang, said Edinburg Police Chief Quirino Muñoz. Although bearing the same initials as the Tri-City Bombers, a gang based out of the Pharr, San Juan and Alamo area, the two gangs are separate, Muñoz said.

Prosecutors want to begin Ramirez’s capital murder trial by early August, said Joseph Orendain, the other prosecutor handling the case.

In court Monday, Ramirez was re-indicted on the murder charges in order to include murder charges that connect him with a criminal street gang. Also, Thompson said he is seeking DNA evidence from the crime scene in order to determine who was at the crime scene.

With at least half a dozen family members in the courtroom, two women approached Ramirez before court and kissed him on the cheek while sheriff’s deputies flanked him.

In all, 12 men are being charged in the Edinburg murders. Eleven of the men have been arrested and police are still looking to arrest Juan "El Perro" Miguel Nuñez, thought to have escaped to Mexico, said Muñoz. The suspected leader of the Tri-City Bombers, Jeffrey "Dragon" Juarez was arrested in July after a routine traffic stop by the Pharr Police Department.

In a separate crime also linked to the Tri-City Bomber gang, four female barmaids were killed in Donna on Sept. 5, 2002 after assailants mistook the women for two other bar employees that had hits out on their lives. Robert "Bones" Gene Garza, 20, was sentenced to death in December for the deaths of those women. Garza is facing another death penalty charge in relation to the Edinburg deaths. A second man, Mark "Snoop" Anthony Reyna, pleaded guilty to the Donna murders and received a life sentence.

The arrests in the Sept. 5 Donna murders were made after Edinburg police made their arrests in late January 2003.

Ramirez will be back in court April 15 while Sauceda and Garza will return May 20 for pre-trial hearings.

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