Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Boys beat step-dad dead after he molests little sister

Episode Date: January 31, 2022

A rancher finds Gabriel Quintanilla beaten, in a field outside McAllen, Texas. The 42-year-old dies of blunt force trauma to the head. An investigation uncovers a warrant for Quintanilla on charges of continuous sexual assault of a child and assault, family violence. This is after Quintanilla's 9-year-old daughter accuses him of inappropriately touching her. Police said the girl's teen stepbrothers, Christian, and Alejandro Trevino, learn of the accusations and confront Quintanilla, leading to a fight. Quintanilla reportedly then left the area on foot. A second fight occurred when Christian Trevino allegedly chased Quintanilla. At some point, Alejandro Trevino arrived in a car driven by friend Juan Eduardo Melendez, 18. The two other teens reportedly joined in on the attack. Quintanilla was then attacked a third time. Police believe brass knuckles were used. The teens put Quintanilla in the bed of the truck, then drive him to the open field where he is dumped.An online petition has received more than 240,000 signatures in support of releasing the two brothers and the friend.Joining Nancy Grace Today: Kathryn Marsh - Special Victims Liaison for the State’s Attorneys Office (Charles County, MD), Co-Founder: Right Response Consulting, "No Grey Zone" Podcast", www.rightresponseconsulting.com, Instagram/Twitter @nogreyzoneRRC Caryn Stark - NYC Psychologist, www.carynstark.com, Twitter: @carynpsych, Facebook: "Caryn Stark"  Greg Scheffer - Former Phoenix Police Department Detective, 22 Years Specializing in Child Sexual Exploitation, Crimes Against Children, Domestic Violence and Adult Sex Crimes. Dr. Kendall Crowns – Chief Medical Examiner Tarrant County (Ft Worth), Lecturer: University of Texas and Texas A&M, Affiliated Faculty: University of Texas Medical Branch Mark Reagan - Staff Reporter, The Monitor (Rio Grande Valley), MyRGV.com, Twitter: @RGVReagan, Instagram: @MonitorNews, Facebook.com/MonitorNews Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Three teens, including brothers, behind bars right now for homicide. Now typically when I read a headline that says teens, boys too, teen males behind bars for murder, for homicide, I think, oh, junior predators, baby killers. They're going to even be worse when they grow up. But believe it or not, these three teens have nearly 250,000 signatures demanding they be released from jail. Now, have you ever heard me say I want a killer released from behind bars? Because I don't think I have ever said that. Before you judge me, I want you to hear the whole story.

Why are three teen boys behind bars for homicide? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. First of all, take a listen to Hour Cut One, our friends at KRGV Channel 5. A homicide investigation underway in Pharr. That's a video from the scene in McAllen yesterday. Pharr police say the body of 42-year-old Gabriel Quintanilla was dumped there after he was killed. 18-year-old Alejandro Trevino already in custody

in connection with Quintanilla's death. Charges against him pending. Police now looking for 17-year-old Cristian Santos. They're also looking for a third guy believed to be driving a red Dodge Charger. We're told the investigation stems from a family situation. If you know where to find Santos or have any other information related to this case, contact our Crime Stoppers at 787-8477. With me, an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. First of all, Catherine Marsh, Special Victims Liaison State Attorney's Office, joining us.

You can find her at RightResponseConsulting.com. Karen Stark, renowned psychologist, joining us out of Manhattan at KarenStark.com, starting with a C. Greg Sheffer, former Phoenix Police Department detective, 22 years and specializing. Dr. Kendall Crowns with us, the chief medical examiner, Tarrant County, that's Fort Worth, Texas. Lecturer, University of Texas and Texas A&M. Also, Faculty, University of Texas Medical. And first, let's go to Mark Reagan, staff reporter, the monitor that's in the Rio Grande Valley. You can find him at myRGV.com. Mark, thank you so much for being with us. I want to start, first of all, with the discovery of 42-year-old Gabriel Quintanilla.

Tell me, where was his body found and in what condition? Mr. Quintanilla's body was found by a farmer in kind of a small agricultural area on the southern part of McAllen. Wait, are you saying McGowan? McAllen. Okay. McAllen. Yes, go ahead. Because I have Pharr, Texas.

Right. So McAllen and Pharr are right next to each other. We're the seventh largest county in the state of Texas. Whoa, hold on. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait. Mark, Texas is like its own country. God bless Texas. Who doesn't love Texas? Nobody that I know. So if you're telling me McAllen and Pharr are the two biggest counties in Texas,

that must be pretty big. Tell me. Tell me about it. We've got about a million people here, lots of international commerce. And then we also are kind of surrounded by rural areas. And those rural areas are kind of on the edges to the south and to the north. And it's one of these rural areas that they found keeping his body. Hold on. I want to get back to McAllen and Farr. Okay. When you say there's a lot of international commerce, what do you mean by that exactly? Chances are if you eat tomatoes, they go through Farr. Really? Produce. Yes. Car parts, stuff of that nature. Can you keep talking? Because I don't know any of this. I mean, I know how to try a murder case i know how to talk about uh trajectory

of bullets and bleeding out and the law and felony murder i know how to wrap crime scene tape around the house but i don't know anything about what you're saying so this dead body is found out in a rural area you said mccallan. Is that what you said? No, McAllen is a city. The county is Hidalgo County. Okay. I'm going to go with the city of McAllen. Okay. City of McAllen and in a rural area, correct? Right. Right. And so, so the case first originated with that police department. Mark Reagan with me from the Monitor in Rio Grande Valley. Mark, that is a huge area there in Texas, a huge rural area. Like you just schooled me, if you eat a tomato, it probably came through McAllen. Where exactly in this huge rural area was Gabriel Cantia's body found?

On a small little plot of farmland south of the city of McAllen. A small plot of farmland south of McAllen. Was he buried? No. He was just laying there in front of God and everybody. Just laying there in some tall grass. Laying in tall grass. I'm just curious, did they look for drag marks?

Had he been dragged there, dumped there? Were there car or tire tracks in tall grass? I mean, you know what you're making me think of? Everybody, we all went through the Corrina Vetrano murder case, the Long Island jogger case together. And in the journey, oh, I hate using that word, but in the journey of finding her killer, finding her body started with her dad, Phil Vetrano, out looking for his daughter who went jogging without him. He was supposed to go that day. And he saw one, he's praying to God to find his daughter.

He saw one blade of tall grass bent over. And he was told to go that way. He went that way. He saw another blade and another blade and he followed it and he found his daughter's body. Mark Reagan, were there drag marks? Do we know? I don't know if there are drag marks, but there were definitely tire marks. Ah, well, there you go. You trumped me. You big footed me. So there were tire marks marks ah well there you go you trumped me you big-footed me so there were tire marks which tells me oh so much with me greg scheffer former phoenix police department detective 22 years greg obviously that means the scene was staged he was not killed there he was taken there and his body was dumped there why why do

you believe that if you do believe that i think it does look like they dumped the body or whoever dumped the body and uh obviously do that to try to hide the crime or hide the body take it to a different location and hopefully give them time to either get away or to hide the body for a period of time. You know, I'm also very curious, Catherine Marsh. They didn't bother to bury the body if they wanted it hidden, but they dumped it. What does that tell you about the killer? They were probably inexperienced and didn't have a lot of prior time of destroying evidence or anything like that, it could also show that it may have been pretty spontaneous or pretty quick

because it was just a dump. You know, Karen Stark, the staging of a scene, the hiding of a body, you and I have talked many, many times all the way back to court TV. You and I would sit on a dark set talking about the trial as it unfolded in front of us. Staging the scene means something very significant. And staging could be as simple as moving the body. It could be as simple as putting a blanket over the face. You and I have talked about a case where a mother was found naked in her bedroom and the killer had put a wicker trash basket over the mom's head. I mean, we see all sorts of staging. Staging to make a murder

look like a suicide. But what does staging tell you about the identity of the killer, Karen Stark? Well, it tells you how the killer feels about the victim. You know, for instance, the examples you were giving, Nancy, when someone's face is being covered, then you assume that there was concern about them being taken care of to some extent, as absurd as that may sound. And when I think about this particular example, there is no staging. They just dump him and leave him. And that tells me that they could care less, that here's a person that they disregard, feel like he's trash.

Let him just be there. And they're fine with that. Angry. You're saying that very often scenes are staged because the killer cares about the victim. In this case, I don't think they cared about the victim at all. They dumped him out in a rural area, hoping nobody would ever find his body. What do you make of that? I agree.

That's exactly what I'm saying. The fact that they just dumped him and made no attempt to cover him up or even to hide their crime tells me that they were enraged, furious. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Mark Reagan joining us from the Monitor there in the Rio Grande Valley. You can find him at Monitor News. Hey, Mark, could you tell me about the COD cause of death? The cause of death is blunt force trauma. Okay, that takes some doing, Dr. Kendall Crowns. It's not always like you see in the movies,

one whop to the back of the head and the person kills over dead. Very often you find the victim of blunt force trauma death beaten from head to toe explain what it takes to kill somebody with blunt force trauma as in this case well so when you're using blunt force trauma and just using your fists and not a bat or a board or something like that you have to hit the individual numerous times to try and cause enough damage to kill them. Now, sometimes you can punch them in the face and they fall back and they break their skull on the sidewalk. But if that doesn't happen, you just have to continually hit them

until you're causing enough injury internally, generally in the neck or the skull region, that it causes injury to the brain or vital structures in the neck until they die. Also, you can hit an individual in the abdomen as well and cause a rupture of the liver and intestines. But again, that takes a fair amount of force and a lot of repetitive hitting. So, Mark Reagan, what do police do when they find Gabriel Quintanilla there on this isolated farm. And you said it was a small family farm plot. To whom did the plot belong? Or do we know that yet?

Oh, we don't know. We don't know who it belonged to. These little splashes of farmland are pretty common in the area. So, Mark Reagan, did anyone live on the plot? Was there a home there? No. No, nobody lived, did anyone live on the plot? Was there a home there? No, no, nobody lived there. Nobody lived there. What about any video surveillance? I guess in that area, very rural area, the closest thing you'd have to any video surveillance is going to be maybe,

maybe, and probably not a red light cam. Well, actually, you'd be surprised. It is rural, but it's right up next to an urban area as you get down close to the border. And being the nature of the border, there are cameras everywhere. But they were able to obtain that video surveillance. Why are three teens behind bars for the homicide of this man, 42-year-old Gabriel Quintanilla. They have just appeared for their first appearance. And now as the story unfolds, take a listen now to FAR Police Chief Andy Harvey. A second part of this that I want to make sure it's clear is that, and there were some questions about why is it a capital murder versus just a

murder. And it's a capital murder because Quintanilla was kidnapped, right? When he was taken in the back of the F-150 and dropped off somewhere else. So he was kidnapped. And then at the scene where they dropped him off, the Trevino's, they got some property. They removed some property or stole some property from Quintanilla. So that makes it a capital murder. So I understand what they're saying to you, Catherine Marsh, is that it is a capital murder because it was what? In conjunction with another felony such as kidnap or robbery?

That's right. So in Texas, you can have a capital murder crime when you have an intentional killing that goes along with either a kidnapping or a robbery. And as we heard from the police chief, he's saying we've got the elements here of a kidnapping taking him from one location to the other, the field where he was found. And then also some of his personal property was removed. It sounds like the three, the two brothers and the friend, were after the alleged victim, Gabriel Quintanilla, to rob him. The item, the piece of property that was stolen was actually very personal. It was a watch, I believe it was a gold watch, that Christian gave his stepfather for a birthday or Christmas. And the last thing Christian does after dumping his stepdad in the field

is he takes that watch back. And that's the piece of property that was stolen. What does that tell you, Karen Stark? So symbolic, Nancy. I mean, if you think about what we're talking about with them just dumping the body, he's saying, absolutely made a mistake in giving you this watch.

You don't deserve anything. And I'm taking it back. You know what else it tells me, Karen Stark? It tells me that at some point, this teen boy, who's now just turned 17, cared about the stepfather, Gabriel Quintanilla, enough for a young boy who doesn't have much to get the money to buy the stepfather a gold watch. And then, I mean, when you have a breakup or something like that, Karen Stark, you want, I want my stuff back. You want your stuff back because it means something because you were,

let's just say, in love and you you feel betrayed. And you want your stuff back. To me, I can just see this teen boy taking that gold watch that he had given his stepfather back. After he had beat him so badly. Because at one time, he cared for the stepfather. That's the picture that is so clear, Nancy. That betrayal is the word you use that comes to mind, that he loved him and cared about him and got a gold, not just a regular watch, but a gold watch and was so hurt, betrayed, angry that he grabbed that back. He made sure after killing him, he took the time to take that watch we're finding out more about how the murder unfolded take a listen to far police chief andy harvey cut tin they found him on

veterans road walking and so a third assault happened so this continues and it's the third time that they meet well what we learn now is that during the second assault, I believe, Christian had some brass knuckles. So brass knuckles were used in these assaults. So they continued to assault Quintanilla. And this time they severely beat him to the point where he's either unconscious or or close to it they then decide to pick him up kidnap and put him in back of the f-150 in the bed and drive off to somewhere in South McAllen he was dropped off somewhere in the Wayland McCall area that's where the the McAllen Police Department was called and that's

where they found him later that day. We understand that he was unconscious but breathing at the time, but nonetheless, Quintanilla died there in the open field. Mm-hmm. You know, I haven't seen a lot of people crying over this murder. Think about it. A murder with the use of brass knuckles. So why nearly 250,000 people joined together to get these teens out from behind bars? Because to Dr. Kendall Crown's chief medical examiner joining us out of Tarrant County, that's Fort Worth, explain what brass knuckles do and why that's different from punching somebody with your fist so what brass knuckles are

is they go over your fingers and they are standardly metal they can be shaped in a way that they can have edges or or even points on them and what they make your punching more efficient so they cause more tissue damage with each punch because the metal can cause more damage and then again if they're shaped it can also cause tearing or punctures or things like that so brass knuckles make your punches better or harder dr kendall crown spoken like a true md a medical doctor a medical examiner g Greg Sheffer, break it down for me. What do brass knuckles do? They cause great damage.

It's going to increase your damage. You punch somebody in the face with brass knuckles, it's going to be lights out. And if you hit them multiple times, you could crush a skull, cause hemorrhaging to the brain. And also, it protects the hand. It doesn't cause the person using them, they don't worry about breaking their knuckles when they're breaking the face. It's devastating. It can cause damage. It's devastating to whoever is taking those punches.

So why, again, a quarter million people want these three out from behind bars. Take a listen to our cut to Karina Vargas, CBS 4. Three teens were charged today for the murder of a 43-year-old man. We first brought you this story Thursday when FAR police were searching for suspects after the death of Gabriel Quintanilla. And then on Friday, investigators linked three teens. You can see on your screen on the left is 17 year old Christian Treviño in the center, 18 year old Alejandro Treviño and on the right is 19 year old Juan Eduardo Melendez. Quintanilla was found in a McAllen field and police say that several fights broke out at different

locations after Quintanilla was accused of touching his 9-year-old daughter, who was also the half-sibling to the Treviño brothers, Quintanilla was left in a field severely beaten. Investigation revealed that the victim was hurt, beaten with brass knuckles and suffered severe head trauma at that point. Although the victim was severely beaten, the victim may still have been alive when he was there. And McAllen, we don't know for how long.

Obon has been set at $500,000 for all suspects. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Straight up to Mark Reagan joining us from the monitor. So bottom line, these three teens, two of them brothers, were convinced the stepfather, Gabriel Quintanilla, had been molesting the nine-year-old little sister. Is that right? Oh, yeah, that's right. On that day, the child had made an outcry to the mother, and the boys found out about it. Mm-hmm. But that's just part of the story. Take a listen to our cut six. Again, Fire Police Chief Andy Harvey.

This warrant was for a separate offense, not the nine-year-old. We were not aware and we were not aware of any history. Mark Reagan, another child molestation victim. There's a warrant for a separate offense. What? That's correct. And we know very little about the details of that warrant. Well, do you know what the warrant was for?

Yes, continuous sexual abuse of a child. And not this nine-year-old little girl? A different little girl? Not this nine-year-old girl. Can I just ask, theoretically, what was he doing out and in the home with a nine-year-old little girl? Why was he there? Shouldn't that have been a condition for if you got a warrant for you? I mean, why was he allowed to be in the home with a nine-year-old girl? It's really hard for me to understand why the girl's mother would let him in the home unless she didn't know about it. Those are just a few questions running through my mind. Let's take a listen to cut six again. The police chief, Andy Harvey,

start from the top, please. This warrant was for a separate offense, not the nine-year-old. We were not aware and we were not aware of any history between Quintanilla and his nine-year-old. We were not aware, and we were not aware of any history between Quintanilla and his nine-year-old girl, which allegedly happened on Wednesday night. So we just don't know, have enough information about that because that's still an ongoing investigation. So those are two separate incidents. We had not heard from Quintanilla. Obviously, he's been running from us, and we didn't know of him until he was found deceased in McAllen. An ongoing investigation. In other words, this guy's walking free

after he's accused of molesting one little girl. He's walking free because of an ongoing investigation. They don't even know where he is. Take a listen to our cut number four, KRGV's Monica DeAnda. That warrant for Gabriel Quintanilla for continuous sexual abuse of a child was from another incident, and that involved another minor, not the minor currently involved in this case. We're also learning tonight the mother of the Trevino brothers may face charges. The detectives went out to look for Quintanilla at that time

and were unable to find him. They searched, they went to his last known residence, they went to his mother's residence multiple times. FAR police first learned about Gabriel Quintanilla in 2019 when a minor claimed Quintanilla sexually assaulted her between 2014 and 2016. He was being elusive obviously and hiding from us. Chief Harvey telling us Quintanilla's name was then entered in a national database and he'd been on the run ever since. So the ongoing three years of child molestation alleged going back to 2016, there was a warrant taken out in 2019. Now, you know what? Straight back out to you, Mark Reagan.

I'm just a JD, a juror's doctorate. I'm not good at math, but let's see, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. There's been an ongoing investigation for four years on molestation that started back in 2016. Are my numbers correct, Mark? Your numbers are correct, but from 2019 to 22, it's been find the fugitive, you know. Find the fugitive. Well, did he live there? Did he live in either McAllen or Farr? From what I understand, he lived in Farr. And what's the population of Farr, Texas? You know, it's best just to lump the whole area, and it's about a million bees growing to each other.

This guy's living right under their noses, and they couldn't find him. So he's out walking free so he can molest another little girl that we know of. I mean, Karen Stark, our friendly shrink from Manhattan. Karen Stark, how many times have we talked about the fact that once somebody's caught molesting, it's like DUI. Once you catch a DUI, they have already driven drunk. I forgot how many, 100x times they've already driven drunk. Same thing with child molestation. Once you catch one, they've already molested, what, 70 times and they've never been caught?

Is that the right number? I would say so, Nancy. They have been doing this for many many years they can't stop them i'm so mad right now i could chew a nail in half karen stark when children are molested they they go on from the outside looking in it seems like they're having a normal life they're not not. What are some of the side effects of child molestation on the victim? It influences everything, Nancy. They're not able to perform well in school sometimes. It's trauma. So they can't sleep at night. They relive the incident.

They don't feel comfortable around adults or people in general. Sometimes they develop a lot of phobias. It's a terrible, terrible thing. As you know, to do that to a child, their life is never the same. That feeling of helplessness to Greg Sheffer, former Phoenix PD detective, 22 years specializing in child sex exploitation, child crimes against children. Jump in, Greg. This is not a tea party over at Highgrove. All right?

We're talking about a child molester that has now been murdered. The sons had to take the law into their own hands. Well, when I heard about it, it sounds like they walked that warrant through. So I don't think he was ever in custody for that prior case. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Explain what you just said, walk it through. Well, it sounds like they never arrested him for that prior case, but they wanted to,

and then he was in the wind. And so they walked that warrant through, which means they went through either a grand jury to get an indictment so they could get a warrant to issue it and put it in the system so they could try to pick him up. So I don't know the details of that prior case, but obviously it was extensive. It was a two-year crime of continuous sexual abuse, and obviously if he lived in that town, his family knew about that as well. So that was not a secret crime. I'm sure mom knew about it and anybody associated with it knew about that.

But then when he did the repeat and he actually harmed someone closer to home, I think that's what enraged the brothers and caused the vigilante. Okay, I'm going to go out on a limb here, Catherine Mars, just based on what we know right now. If there had been ongoing sex molestation in the last case where he was walking free, that tells me ongoing, a couple of years at least of molesting a little girl, he had access to her like a parent, a stepfather, an uncle, a piano teacher, something like that, where he had access to a child alone. Now, doesn't that sound a lot like a similar transaction to you? Because here

you got a nine-year-old girl allegedly being molested by Gabriel Quintanilla. Same thing. Second verse. Same as the first. How long? How loudly do we have to sing? This is a man who has been in a position of trust and care for at least two young people that we know he abused that trust and sexually molested them. And what we know is there was enough evidence for the first incident that the court or a commissioner found probable

cause for that crime and issued a warrant. And the real travesty is from 2019, that warrant was not served and this little nine-year-old girl was also molested. And I bet you bottom dollar other girls were molested as well. Guys, take a listen to our cut five from KRGV. Police have arrested three teens, including Quintanilla's step-sons, Alejandro and Christian Treviño, and a third male, Juan Eduardo Melendez. According to police, they beat Quintanilla after hearing he had allegedly sexually abused another minor, who was also a family member.

Now, two of the teens facing capital murder charges. Capital murder because Quintanilla was kidnapped, right, when he was taken in the back of the F-150 and dropped off somewhere else. So he was kidnapped. And then at the scene where they dropped him off, the Trevino's, they got some property. They removed some property or stole some property from Quintanilla. We also asked Chief Harvey if there's a possibility the boy's mother could face charges.

That's still all part of this open investigation. That is certainly a question that we had, whether or not, why we weren't notified and that kind of thing. So there's more questions out there and that's something that we're still looking into. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Mark Reagan is joining me, a reporter with The Monitor. Mark, why would the teen boy's mother be arrested? What's the reasoning there? If she knew that Quintanilla had this warrant and she didn't turn him in, that would be hindering apprehension or prosecution. Wait a minute. The law would expect her to turn in her own husband? Yes. Okay. That's probably not going

to happen. But what I'm more concerned about, Mark Reagan, and of course, you're absolutely right. But what I'm more concerned about, if the mom knew about the alleged prior sex molestation that went on for allegedly years on another little girl, why would she have him around the nine-year-old daughter? And Mark Reagan also, the nine-year-old alleged child molestation victim at the hands of now dead Gabriel Quintanilla, that's her daughter, right? That's correct. And her half-brothers or step-brothers are Christian and Alejandro, correct? That's right. So from what I understand, the little girl admits that the dad, Gabriel Quintanilla,

is molesting her, and the boys go, they go look for him, and they find him, right? That's right. And they kill him, right? That's right, they kill him. I think one thing you can note, though, is Alejandro only participated in the first meeting. Then Christian and his friend Juan go track him down the second time, then the third time. Take a listen to our cut three, K-R-G-V. The three teens on your screen now arraigned for the murder of a man in McAllen. Far police say the trio severely beat 42-year-old Gabriel Quintanilla

and dumped his body in a McAllen field. We first told you about this story on Thursday when police discovered the body. Officials tell us the incident started when a child alerted someone that Quintanilla had touched them inappropriately. After the teens confronted Quintanilla, a fight broke out and continued at several locations before he was dumped in McAllen. Police believe Quintanilla may have been alive when he was dropped off. Quintanilla was already wanted by police for ongoing abuse of a child. All three teens have been charged with aggravated assault and engaging in criminal

activity. Christian Trevino and Juan Eduardo Melendez also charged with capital murder. And a lot of questions are, we're finding answers to them. Now take a listen to our cut eight, police chief again. January 21st, our detectives met with Alejandro, the 18-year-old, and he talked about a fight that took place at 1201 East Moore, it's a trailer park, 140, involving Alejandro and Christian, his brother. And what they heard was to be an alleged touch by their stepdad, Quintanilla, with their sister, nine-year-old sister. They learned that their stepdad had inappropriately touched her, his nine-year-old, which is their stepsister, half-sister, which is also important to note that the nine-year-old that was the victim, this is her biological dad. Quintanilla is her biological father. It has a lot of different legs here, so I'm trying to keep everybody kind of up to date here. So here's a guy that's been charged with child molestation on a little girl before.

I would wager somebody he's related to because he had access to the child to molest them over a period of years. Nobody stopped him. Get a warrant on him. It gets walked through. In other words, they get the warrant, he's charged, and then he's, as was said earlier, in the wind on the loose. Cops don't do their job. They don't do their job they don't find him until he turns up half dead out in a field because they didn't do their job he's free to molest again this little girl that we know of how many others don't know now i'm not suggesting police are responsible for the death, the homicide. But I am saying they dropped the ball and didn't put this guy behind bars. Of course, on the other hand, Mark Reagan, you and I were talking off camera about jail crowding. And it was my belief that in Texas, they don't just let you out because the jail is crowded.

But am I wrong? No, they don't just let you out because the jail is overcrowded. Like they do in New York City and city of Atlanta and many other big jurisdictions. They just, here, give me your fingerprint. You know, in New York, they were actually giving arrestees gift cards. Mark Reagan, you know that, right? In New York City, de Blasio was handing out gift cards to people after they got charged. No, I'm not aware of that.

Yeah, well, now you are. Mm-hmm. It's like you get a prize for getting arrested. Mark Reagan, joining me from the monitor at Rio Grande Valley. Mark, the fight, let me say, went to multiple locations. Tell me about that. Sure. It was kind of, they caught him outside the initial apartment complex. They beat him. He ran away on foot. They tracked him down. They beat him again. He was able to get away one more time. And they went and they found him a final time. And he didn't get away that time.

What is the mother saying about all of this, Mark Reagan? Right now, nothing publicly. All they've been saying is we need we need money to get a lawyer. A lawyer for the three boys, the teens. For the boys. that's right. This is what we are learning about the way that the homicide unfolded. Take a listen to our cut. Nine is the police chief, Andy Harvey, again. This is what happened.

They found out about this. There was a fight that ensued there inside the trailer between the two brothers and their stepdad. There was a fight. Stepdad, Quintananilla leaves the trailer. He walks out, and shortly right down the road, Christian, the older brother, leaves, catches up to Quintanilla, and there's a fight that ensues.

Well, around the same time, Christian and Juan Melendez, the friend, catch up to them. They get involved in the fight, and so there's three against one. So the second assault happened right down the road on Moore. A few minutes later, they leave him there. He's beaten up, but he's still conscious and walking. The three leave, drop off Alejandro back at the house. They go to Juan's house, pick up a different car. They picked up a white F-150 and they decide to go back and look for Quintanilla to see if they can find him again. Well, it wouldn't be the first time that vigilante justice was carried out. Take a listen now to our cut 18 from ABC.

A frantic father called 911 after finding a farmhand, Jesus Flores, allegedly sexually assaulting his little girl. The Lavaca County District Attorney's office released the dramatic call. Well, that's 10-9-1, take some mercy. I hear an ambulance. Okay. I hear an ambulance. This guy was breaking my daughter, and I beat him up, and I don't know. I don't know what to do. In that case, the defendant who attacked his daughter's molester, was let free.

So explain to me right now, straight back out to our friend Mark Reagan from The Monitor in Rio Grande Valley, where does the case stand now? You've got at least a two-time sex offender on children, allegedly, walking free, and the brothers of the little girl find him and beat him, and he dies. They're the ones behind bars. Where does the case stand right now, Mark? Well, right now, what's probably happening is the boys are going to get, I'm sure they're going to get court-appointed attorneys. And those attorneys are likely going to file what's called a writ of habeas corpus, basically a bond deduction.

And they'll probably get where the attorneys, you know, they'll make several arguments, you know, bail can't be used as punishment, safety for the community. And they'll hash it out and try to get these bonds reduced for these young men. And then simultaneously, the police department, I'm sure, is continuing to investigate and working with prosecutors in the DA's office to build an indictment to eventually present to a grand jury. If you want to help in any way or find out more, go to change.org. Justice for Alejandro, Christian, and Juan. Repeat, change.org.

Justice for Alejandro, Christian, and Juan. If you know of someone that is being sex assaulted, don't just stand by and do nothing. If you need help yourself, toll free, 800-656-4673. Repeat, 800-656-4673. Let justice be done. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.