Raul Meza Jr.Photo:Austin Police Department via AP
Austin Police Department via AP
An Austin, Texas man who was previously convicted and imprisoned for murder now faces two new murder charges after allegedly confessing in a phone call to police.
And now, police are looking at multiple cold cases that they say Raul Meza Jr might be connected to.
Meza Jr, 62, was apprehended on May 29 after confessing to the murder of his 80-year-old roommate Jesse Fraga and also implicating himself in the 2019 murder of Austin woman Gloria Lofton, police revealed this week.
Homicide detective Patrick Reed said that he answered the call on May 24, and that the 62-year-old allegedly went on to “detail the manner in which he murdered Mr. Fraga, including details that had not yet been released to the public.”
During Meza’s alleged call to authorities, Reed claimed Meza also had shared “case-specific facts” that pertained to the killing of Lofton, who was strangled. “The phone call provided me with enough probable cause to file a capital murder arrest warrant for the murder of Gloria Lofton,” Reed said.
DNA recovered from Lofton’s killing was allegedly also linked to Meza, police said,according to the ABC report.
Reed also said that Meza was convicted of aggravated robbery in 1975, along with a 1982 murder charge — and since then, “multiple cold cases” have been identified with a “similar M.O.,” He added that police have been looking into them for “future leads.”
Meza had previouslypleaded guiltyto the murder of an 8-year-old Kendra Page, whose body was discovered in a dumpster at an Austin elementary school in 1982, Austin’s assistant interim city manager Bruce Mills said during the press conference. In 1993, theNew York Timesreported that Meza had been released that year “under mandatory supervision” after only serving 11 years of a 30 year sentence.
Getty Images
Mills, who served as primary investigator on the Page homicide case, spoke briefly at the press conference about the 1982 murder and reflected on Meza being released from prison 11 years later.
“Here we are 30 years after that,” Mills said. “And as I said, a suspect in other cold cases. Here’s a guy that should have spent the rest of his life — probably from the time he nearly killed a gentleman when he was 15 years old, certified as an adult, later commits capital murder, is released 11 years later, and has killed how many people, we don’t know?”
“So here’s a serial killer that justice was not served. There’s a travesty of justice [totally] in this case.”
Detective Katie Conner revealed during the press conference that she was looking into “all the cold cases that could potentially be involved” with Meza. “So there is a good possibility that we will find additional cases as well,” she said.
Connor explained police currently have between 8 and 10 cases that “kind of fit the similar circumstances that we’re looking at, but that could obviously grow.”
Meza has since been booked into the Travis County Jail.
source: people.com
