Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - 3 Major Developments in Execution-Style Murder of Pregnant Teen Savanah Soto

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Savanah Soto was hours away from being induced to give birth to her first child when she and her boyfriend, Matthew Guerra, were shot to death last December. Since that time, Christopher Preciado, 19, has been charged with their murders and his parents have been charged with helping move the bodies of Soto and Guerra. Law&Crime's Angenette Levy talks with former prosecutor Josh Ritter about three developments in the case in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that delves into the biggest stories in crime.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:Head of Social Media, YouTube - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoAudio Editing - Brad MaybeGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@LawandCrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. The father of the man accused of executing pregnant teenager Savannah Soto on the stand, asking a judge to reduce his bail. I'm a good guy. You might have a lot of paperwork there, but that doesn't describe a person. That describes a boy. We have three major developments in the Savannah Soto murder case out of Texas. I'm Anjanette Levy. It's Friday, and this is Crime Fix. Savannah Soto was scheduled to be induced to give birth to her first child the day after she was executed.

Soto and her boyfriend, Matthew Guerra, were shot to death days before Christmas. Their bodies were found in Guerra's car on December 26th in San Antonio. Court documents say Soto and her boyfriend, Matthew Guerra, had gone to Christopher Preciado's home so Guerra could sell Preciado some marijuana. Those documents say Guerra was known to sell drugs and had been shot at before. Christopher Preciado and his dad, Ramon Preciado, were arrested in early January. Court documents say Christopher Preciado told police that Matthew pointed a gun at him and he was able to grab it and manipulate it, which resulted in Savannah being shot. But detectives say that version of

events did not line up with the evidence. Surveillance videos showed Ramon Preciado getting out of his truck when police said Christopher pulled up in a parking lot, driving Matthew Guerra's car with Matthew and Savannah's bodies inside. Ramon Preciado is accused of helping his son move the bodies. Josh Ritter is a former prosecutor, and he's here to discuss all of this with me. Josh, let's start with Ramon Preciado, the father of the suspect in this case, the murder suspect, Christopher Preciado, who's in court on Monday asking a judge to reduce his bail. So first of all, how significant is that? I mean, I see these bail reduction requests all the time, but this guy is saying, I'm in jail.

I'm not getting the proper medical care. Yes, I have a prior criminal record, but that was from when I was much, much younger. Now he's charged with helping his son move bodies in a double homicide. Your take on his argument that his bail should be reduced because he's not getting proper medical care. I don't think the proper medical care is going to go very far with a judge. I think his better argument was probably when he was talking about how he has, you know, very little or if any criminal history, it's significantly older and in his past, and he's a changed man now. But the medical care

thing, I've seen that raised many times in court. The defendants say, I've got certain conditions, I need certain medications, I can't be in custody. And the answer is always, they have excellent facilities in custody. Whether that's true or not, you know, others may talk to you about that issue. But the idea that they cannot receive medical care, medication, they have facilities inside of all of these jails that can address almost any issue that comes up. So I don't really think the judge is going to after hearing Ramon Preciado testify on the stand, ended up reducing his bail from $600,000 to police, the murder victim's car with the murder victim's bodies, the dead bodies inside. And he's accused of helping his son, you know, tamper with evidence, move the bodies, things of that nature. Were you surprised that Ramon Preciado was put on the witness stand and subjected to questioning by the prosecutor about this? Or is that something that's pretty common? I feel like I've really, I'm not sure I've seen that happen very often.

I've never seen it happen. I don't think it's very common at all. I think maybe perhaps in this jurisdiction, it's something that they can allow. Sometimes you can allow someone to testify to a very limited purpose. So he's not essentially waiving his Fifth Amendment rights because he's, listen, he's a defendant. He's got Fifth Amendment rights to not testify, but he's not waiving those rights as to the substantive issues, you know, what he's being charged with, but just on this kind of limited issue as to his bail. I've never seen it. I don't think it's improper, but it's very, very rare. And then apparently it did convince the judge to some extent that they were able to reduce it from, like you said, $600 to, what was it, $450. So that's not a small amount of money,

but I don't know if that $450 is still something that's unattainable for him as a defendant. Yeah, it's like, does he have to post the 10%, which would be $45,000? Can he put up his house? You know, there are all these questions that would still have to be answered. Is there a bail bondsman that can help him out? If he is able to post bail, he does have to do GPS monitoring, which would be pretty standard in a case such as this. He'd have to surrender GPS monitoring, which would be pretty standard in a case such as this. He'd have to surrender his passport, check in, drug and alcohol monitoring. These are all things that are pretty common. Also, there was something interesting that they questioned him about, Josh. He has a business and he's got some kind of, I think it's like a home improvement or he said he still turns a wrench. He's got some kind of business that he was operating not only by himself, but with his son, Christopher, who's charged with

homicide and also his wife, Myrta, who's facing charges in this case. She does the paperwork, although he said she's not on the payroll. So they're basically trying to show, look, this guy's got some roots in the community. He's not going to take off. He's not a flight risk because bail really is all about securing your future court appearances. So they're going to have to put all the bad stuff out there. Yeah, when he was younger, he did some bad stuff, but he was on probation. Probation officer called him a model parolee or model probationer or something to that effect. So they're trying to show that, yeah, the guy's gotten in some trouble, but all in all, he's a guy that goes

to work every day and for the most part keeps himself out of trouble. Sure. And you're right. One of the things the court is concerned with is, are we properly incentivizing the defendant to return back to court? And that's why we have bail attached to money to some extent, because it's the idea that, listen, you know, a large amount of money hanging over this person's head is probably a good reason that might compel them to return to court. But the other thing that the judge is concerned with is public safety. And in a case like this, you know, you're involving

two murders. This is certainly a concern for the safety of the community. And the judge wants to make sure that that bail is set at a proper amount to ensure that the safety to the community as well. So, yeah, he's going to consider arguments like, you know, has he been a model citizen? Does he have responsibilities outside of the courtroom that this would affect? All these other kind of collateral issues. But it really comes down to those two that you have pointed out, the public safety and the ability or ensuring that that person will return to court. And that's why I think the bail that was set at the amount that it was set is probably proper. Now let's move on to his wife, Ramon Preciado's wife, Mirta Ramones, who is the mother of

Christopher Preciado. When they were all first arrested, we were told by police that she was likely his stepmother. Now we've learned she is in fact his biological mother. So we want to clear that confusion up but basically um her bond reduction um was denied in in part or it actually it was it was denied in part so her bond is now six hundred thousand dollars she had it reduced on some of the charges so um yikes six hundred thousand dollar bail for mom who is charged with tampering with evidence, altering, destroying, concealing a human corpse. So she's got a higher bail than her husband now, which I find kind of insane because he's the one that pulls up in the truck obviously and then she's the one the police say is the one captured on surveillance camera tossing the towel out of the truck you can see it on the surveillance footage that's how everybody was like wait there's a third person involved in this so she is going to have a pre

trial hearing in april so parts of her bail were reduced but she's now still got to post a $600,000 bail, maybe 10% one was more culpable than the other, but perhaps there's evidence we don't know about that the judge was privy to that allowed him to arrive at that decision where he felt like her involvement may have been greater and therefore a greater concern for making sure that she again returns to court and there's a protection to the community. And these issues, you're right, are no small thing. This isn't just them arguing over numbers. The difference between a defendant being able to defend themselves out of custody versus in custody as a defense attorney, I can tell you, is huge. Being able to communicate freely with your client, have your client freely review documents

and evidence is a huge advantage over having to go down to a jail facility, showing them documents through a plexiglass window, having limited access to them. What if you go down to the jail and the jail's in lockdown, you can't even see them that day. It just creates so much more difficulty and so much more pressure on the defendant if they're in custody to somehow arrive at a plea deal because they just kind of want to get out of that situation. So these aren't just arguments over numbers and bail. They are a significant impact on how this case might be defended by both of them. And Christopher Preciado, you know, nobody's asking to have his bail reduced

that I know of. I mean, he is accused of pretty heinous, horrible crimes. I mean, he's accused of executing two people, a pregnant woman, my God. So his case will eventually go to the grand jury and he could face the potential if they see fit to possibly face the death penalty if it gets to that point. I don't know if it will, but you do have a pregnant woman involved in this, and that can enhance penalties in many states. So he's being held currently on a $1 million bond. I want to now touch on something that happened during Ramon Preciado's bail hearing on, the bail reduction hearing on Monday.

And Josh, this is just, you know, doesn't really impact the murder case that much, but it was obviously very an odd thing that happened. Savannah Soto's mother, Gloria Ann Cordova is sitting in court watching this hearing unfold. And there's a brief break and some deputies go over to her and they're like, hey, we need to take you into custody. You have a warrant out for your arrest on a separate case for failing to provide information. So it's a class B misdemeanor, totally unrelated to this homicide case. But Josh, I can't imagine sitting in court and you're watching a proceeding for somebody charged in connection to the murder of your daughter, the murder of her boyfriend and the murder of your unborn grandchild. And you're taken into custody.

I mean, that's that's kind of a really, really bad day and a bizarre happening. Yes, it's very bizarre. I will say the idea of taking somebody into custody when they're in court is not entirely unheard of. I've seen it happen many times in my career when I was a prosecutor. And it's because deputies are thinking to themselves, oh, this is a safe place to actually conduct an arrest. Somebody has come into the court. They've likely gone through metal detectors. We know they're not armed. You're not knocking on someone's door in the middle of the night. So they can conduct an arrest in a fairly safe environment. What's bizarre and stood out to me about this was what the underlying charge is, is like you said, a class B misdemeanor. This is

kind of a nothing issue. Not to say that this isn't something she needs to somehow handle but why it was necessary for them to actually take her into custody rather than which i've seen happen before they could just simply remind that person hey by the way you've got a warrant you need to go take care of and the idea of actually putting handcuffs on them is not even seen as necessarily when it's necessary, pardon me, when it's such a low level, nonviolent issue like it apparently was here. Yeah, it was kind of surprising to me. I mean, obviously they tried to do it discreetly, but how do you really discreetly slap handcuffs on somebody and take them out of a courtroom? I mean, obviously it's not like they ran over and tackled her. They ran over and, you know, we're like, Hey, no, you've got a warrant. Um, but

I mean, I, I can't, I mean, it's just the circumstance that, um, this woman has gone through a lot, not only Savannah murdered, but her unborn grandchild, Savannah was scheduled to be induced the day after she was murdered. So she was just hours away, hours away from giving birth to her child. Now both of them are dead. They've been murdered. And her, Savannah's brother, Gloria Ann Cordova's other child, her son, he had been murdered too. So this woman has lost a lot in her life um just a kind of a strange thing to happen during during this hearing that's all i kind of thought yeah and i thought my thoughts to work you know what use a little bit of grace use a little bit of discretion like you said for

everything that this woman's going through she is herself is a victim in all of this. She may have to testify in this case. It just seemed like wrong time, wrong place. I realize they wanted, you know, law enforcement is there to enforce the law. But at the same time, it seems like it was probably a misplaced timing and an opportunity to do that. Yeah, very odd. Well, Josh Ritter, thank you as always for coming on. We appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. And that's it for Crime Fix on this Friday, February 16th, 2024. I'm Anjanette Levy. Thanks so much for being with us. We'll see you back here on Monday. Until then, have a great weekend. You can download Crime Fix on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your favorite podcasts and new episodes post each weeknight

at 6 Eastern time on Law & Crime's YouTube channel. Daniel Camacho does our video editing. Our head of social media is Bobby Zoki. Our senior director of social media is Vanessa Vine. Savannah Williamson is one of our producers. Diane Kay and Alyssa Fisher book our guests. And Brad Mabee is our audio editor.