Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Mom Finds Little Teen Girl in Bathtub Stabbed Dead, Still in PJs

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

As Jacqueline Medina leaves for work, she wakes her daughter, who has plans for the day.  Jacqueline's cheerleading squad is meeting at Edna High School for practice, ahead of the Christmas parade planned for the afternoon. Jacqueline Medina arrives at the parade, excited to see her daughter perform, but Lizbeth is not with the rest of the cheerleaders in the parade. Friends confirmed they hadn't seen Lizbeth in the parade either. In fact, no one had heard from Lizbeth  Worried, Jacqueline starts calling her daughter’s cell phone. The calls go straight to voicemail.  Jacqueline Medina heads home, to the apartment the two of them share.  When Medina gets home, the door is unlocked. Inside, nothing seems out of place. When Jacqueline goes into the bathroom, she pulls back the shower curtain, finding Lizbeth Medina, unconscious. The search for a suspect begins. The day after Lizbeth Medina’s murder, Edna police released surveillance photos of a person and a vehicle of interest. The bearded male in the photo is wearing a black Volcom hooded sweatshirt and he is seen driving a silver Ford Taurus. Two days after the murder of Lizbeth Medina, Edna Police announced an arrest.  The suspect is a 23-year-old "undocumented" migrant, thought to have been living in the USA for the last 5 years. His name is Rafael Govea Romero. He was captured about 75 miles north of Edna in Schulenburg, Texas, where he reportedly has family.   Romero is jailed on suspicion of capital murder. KPRC reports his bond is set at $2 million. Edna Police Chief Rick Boone says items missing from Lizbeth Medina's apartment were found in Romero's possession.  Police say Romero confessed to the murder.     Joining Nancy Grace Today: Nicole Deborde Hochglaube – Criminal Defense Lawyer, Houston; Former Prosecutor; Twitter: @debordelaw Caryn L. Stark – Psychologist, Renowned TV and Radio Trauma Expert and Consultant; Instagram: carynpsych/FB: Caryn Stark Private Practice Chris McDonough – Director At the Cold Case Foundation, Former Homicide Detective; Host of YouTube channel: “The Interview Room” Dr. Todd M. Barr –  Board-certified Anatomic/Clinical/Forensic Pathologist, Featured in “Thin Places: Essays From In Between” by Jordan Kisner Elaine Aradillas– Senior Crime Reporter at The Messenger; Twitter: @elaineja, Instagram: @the_elaineja See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. All A's cheerleader, mom's best friend. Mom just moves to another state for a new job, supporting her 16-year-old daughter all on her own. She gets up, like my mom and dad did, and is gone from the house at 6 a.m. for this new job in renewable energy, I think it was. She wakes her teen girl up, Liz, Lizbeth, before she goes to work to make sure she's up and about because she's got a really big day. She's a cheerleader and she's going to cheer or be in a group of cheerleaders doing a dance or a cheer in a big Christmas parade.

So it's a big day. So mom wakes Lizbeth up and heads to work. Works all day long. Flies to the Christmas parade to see her daughter. She sees cheerleaders go by and she doesn't see Lizbeth. Finds out no one else has heard from Lizbeth since that morning at 7.30 a.m. Flies home. Her daughter, the A student, the cheerleader, already got it all mapped out to go to nursing school, is in her PJs, in the bathtub, dead.

I really don't even know how to go past that because all I can think about are my two 16-year-old twins. But for Elizabeth's sake and for her mother's sake, we're going to move forward. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Crime Stories and on SiriusXM 111. How did this whole thing occur? Listen to our friend friend John Limley.

As Jacqueline Medina leaves for work at 6 a.m., she wakes her daughter. She has plans too. The cheerleading squad is meeting at Edna High School for practice ahead of the Christmas parade planned for the afternoon. Jacqueline Medina arrives at the parade excited to see her daughter perform, but Lizbeth is not with the rest of the cheerleaders in the parade. Friends confirm they hadn't seen Lizbeth in the parade either. Let's just stop right there with me an all-star panel including Elaine Ardeas joining us out of this jurisdiction in Texas, senior crime reporter at The Messenger. But first, I want to go to renowned psychologist, TV radio trauma expert, Karen Stark.

She's at KarenStark.com. That's Karen with a C. Karen, that's just making my chest hurt because I'm imagining that moment that you're looking out and you see the parade and then you see the cheerleaders and you look and your daughter's not with the cheerleaders. That's all she's been talking about for a week is being in this Christmas parade and she's not there. It's such an awful story, Nancy, because this mother is so close to her daughter she was very young when she had her and she's just waiting for her daughter to come along everything is about her child so we know that kind of attachment and what it means when all of a sudden you think wow what happened to her

and then you know asking everybody in the stands whoa, whoa, do you see, have you seen Liz? Have you seen Liz Beth? And none of the moms have seen her. And then she goes down to the cheerleaders. They haven't seen her. You know, it's reminding me when I got a call in New York that my dad had to go in the hospital. And I moved heaven and earth, was out in the street at midnight with the children trying to get a cab to get to an airport, that frantic searching that tried to get to the person

you love. Joining me, Elaine Ardeas out of San Antonio, senior crime reporter at The Messenger. And you can find her at TheMessenger.com. Elaine, thank you for being with us. Tell me about Edna. It's about just under 6,000 people population and this high school and this parade. What was happening that morning? That morning, I mean, it's just a town like Edna. That's a place where everyone is going to be at the parade. So that is all anyone is talking about. From parents, family members, the kids at school, they're probably getting out of

school early. I mean, I am from Texas. I know these towns and it is what they are preparing for. And so, of course, even at school, everyone was at school. They're probably wearing their cheerleader outfits, you know, because the big football game was going to be happening that week. Edna High School were entering the semifinals. And if you know Texas, you know we love football. So this is like that is just what the entire town was talking about and getting ready for. I'm trying to imagine the scene, the big Christmas parade, Lizbeth being in it, the mom being so proud.

I mean, Chris McDonough is joining me, director of the Cold Case Foundation, former homicide detective. And you can find him at coldcasefoundation.org. I didn't find him there. I found him during the Koberger trial because I hadn't gotten to the scene yet. And I found him online in a car driving, I don't know, two miles, miles an hour all around the crime scene. I would say three or four miles outside of it, driving and pointing things. I felt like I was in the car and it really gave me an incredible framework of what was happening and the layout, uh, geographically until I could get out there myself. That's how I found Chris

McDonough. You know, Chris McDonough, I'm just thinking about, um, you have children thinking about how, I don't know how to make this sound right. Not in a bad way, but you kind of live through your children. But what I mean, not in a weird way, like a stage mom, but their triumphs are your triumphs when they do well, man, when the twins do well, I'm on top of the world. When Lucy gets a good grade or John David made the JV basketball team, I want to just do a flip in the front yard. And when they're hurting, I'm just, you know, devastated.

And I'm just imagining this mom. She's so happy. Lizbeth is making these great grades. She's already planned her college. I think it's Arlington University. Isn't that the one she wanted to go to, Elaine? Yes, that's the one. To study nursing.

I mean, it just, the mom is a single mom and she's devoted her life to rearing, to bringing up Lizbeth. And just don't you know how happy she was sitting up in those stands seeing her daughter help lead the Christmas parade for Pete's sake? Yeah, Nancy, I mean, dreams, pride, love, and then it quickly turns into panic. Every parent's worst nightmare, where is my daughter? Where is my daughter? And then I can only imagine, you know, what she was experiencing, the poor family, mom specifically, when she immediately

got to her house, that apartment, opened that door and could sense. Well, wait a minute. There's another twist to this, Chris. I was thinking about the timeline. Let me get this from Elaine Ardeas. And joining me also is Nicole DeBoer Hodgeglobe, high profile lawyer out of this jurisdiction in Texas, former prosecutor. You can find her at Houston Criminal Defense dot com and Dr. Todd Barr, board certified anatomic clinical forensic pathologist featured in thin places, essays from in between. Elaine Ardeas. Now, after work, did the mom go home to change clothes? She did. She was on.

Oh, so, I mean, she was on a construction site. She works in renewable energy. It's the Houston area. I'm sure half the town does. And, you know, she went home and, but again, she's thinking about the parade. She runs in, she changes, grabs, you know, whatever and runs out to get to the parade. And, you know, it was in and out. She wasn't, and why would she think that her daughter was in there?

So bottom line, unbeknownst to her, when she runs in after work to change clothes, her daughter is already dead in the bathtub with the shower curtain pulled. And she doesn't know it. No. I was thinking about this timeline and I realized when mom goes home to change to look good in front of all of her daughter's friends, her daughter is on the other side of the wall, dead. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Dr. Todd Barr joining us, a renowned pathologist. Dr. Barr, how can you tell how long someone has been dead? So there's several ways of checking the time of death.

And what we use, we rely on rigor mortis, which is the stiffening of the muscles that occurs after death. That usually sets in between six to eight hours in the post-mortem interval, becomes very firm for about 24 to 36 hours and then starts to go away after that time. So it breaks down. So there's sort of like in the initial interim after death, the body is still loose and flaccid. And then the muscles start to tighten up after about six to eight hours and go into full rigor mortis for about 24 hours and then it wanes at the other end.

The other thing is lividity, which is the pooling of the blood in the postmortem setting. Once someone passes, the blood starts to leak out of the blood vessels and settle towards gravity. So if they're lying on their back, you'll get this sort of discoloration that occurs in the skin, in the lower part of the body that's closest to where gravity would be pulling. In the case, if they're on their back, would be on their backside, except where there's pressure. And lividity becomes sort of pink and purple. And if you can push on it and it blanches out, that's a relatively new time of death, I would say within the first six hours. After about six hours, that lividity fixes itself. And if you were to roll somebody over that that lividity would

not move if it was if somebody was moved in the early stages of death that lividity would then shift to the new position so if somebody had been dead for say six to eight hours in one position and then rolled, that lividity would not change. It would be fixed. So that's one of the things that when we go to crime scenes, if you see somebody that's on their face, like face down, but the lividity is on the backside of the body, we know that that body's been moved. So those are several of the ways that we can determine time of death and how long a body has been dead.

And along with temperature, there's a called alga mortis, which is the temperature of the body. Depending on the environment that they're in, that temperature will the temperature of the body will decrease by a certain amount per hour, depending on the temperature of the environment that they're in. Will the victim's body stabilize at the ambient temperature? Yes. Yes, it will. And back to rigor, you stated that, I was speaking with Dr. Todd Barr. Everybody on the panel, jump in if you've got a question for him.

Dr. Barr, you stated that rigor, the stiffening of the limbs starts to set in, did you say after about six hours? Yeah, it's generally about six to eight hours. I mean, there are definitely environmental settings that change that. If someone's in a very cold environment or someone's in a very warm environment, it can accelerate or de-accelerate the stiffening of the muscles and the lividity. But if someone is in, say, a regular setting, you know, 70, 75 degree room, they're not in a, you know, overly hot environment. The process goes, you know know pretty much in a standard format i want to go back to rigor it's set between six and eight hours and then did you say

it the victim will remain in rigor or the body stiff until about 24 hours and then the body loosens up? Yeah. So after about 24 hours, the body starts, you know, with the decomposition process, the bonds that hold that rigor together start to break. And so the rigor loosens up. What bond? What bond holds it together? So it's kind of a complicated chemical process that the muscles go through. Just dummy down for me. The chemical process the muscles go through.

Yeah. What happens is there are bonds that the cells of the muscles make, and the energy that it takes to create those bonds breaks down over time. It's just like anything else. It just, as time goes on, things just start to break down. So Riger occurs and is pretty well at the height within about eight to 24 hours. And then after that, just the normal process those bonds just start to to wear off and break out uh so the muscles loosen up again now i i realize i'm asking a lot of questions about how

a body behaves and how you can time um a time of death because it's very critical in this case very critical indeed i wanted to ask you about the Algomortis translation, the temperature of the body. You state that you can tell if the body has reached the ambient temperature in the room. Question, so often people see on TV and in movies that the victim's temperature is actually taken, like in the armpit or some other way or some other part of the body. Is that real? Does that really happen? In my experience, we did not rely heavily on the alga mortis the temperature a lot of times what what people will do in the old days i i didn't see this in my career but they would make an incision and stick the the thermometer into the liver tissue so to get like a core temperature okay wait i'm just absorbing

what you just said in the old days they make an incision in the body and place a thermometer into the liver to determine what body temp the core temperature yes a lot of times in in the the current the way we do it now most people either put it under the armpit or they'll take a rectal temperature what What they want to do is get as close to the core temperature, which is the internal temperature. So, you know, you can't really do like an oral temperature from the mouth because it's too far away from the core. Armpits are kind of too far away from the core.

Rectal temperature. And why do you need the core temp of the body? Because that will tell you where the actual temperature of the body is that you know when you go out and you are out in the snow say in the winter time your fingers get really cold um so you can't really rely on the temperature of the extremities you need you need the temperature of the internal temperature of the core okay i know you probably don't realize this dr todd barr because this is your everyday vernacular, but we think you're pretty brilliant. That was an incredible explanation.

The reason this is so important is I need to figure out time of death. Now, there are other things. Let me go to Nicole DeBoer-Hochglobe, veteran trial lawyer, former prosecutor. Of course, we're going to look at extrinsic evidence to determine time of death. Did she make a phone call and speak to somebody at 715? And then they call back at 730 and she didn't answer the phone. My point is I'm clearing the mother. That's where I'm going with this.

Did the mother have anything to do with this? Absolutely not at all. But I don't want some a-hole defendant trying to push the blame on mom. I'm telling you, if I thought even a tiny bit the mother had anything to do with this, I'd be on her like a cheap suit. But I don't. I believe her. I believe everything that she has said. I've listened

very carefully. I've watched her demeanor and I don't need to believe her because her story is completely accurate. There is video cam of her leaving. Her cell phone leaves with her at the time that she leaves. There are communications that the girl had with other people after mom leaves, we think. But that's why I'm nailing down the time of death. And I will use any and all means to do that, Nicole DeBoer-Hotts-Globe. I mean, you have to. You've got to get the alga mortis, the temperature, the rigor. You've got to look at the liver mortis, how the blood has settled. You have to look at extrinsic evidence like her cell phone, her social media, the mother's cell phone, the video surveillance. Do they have a burglar alarm

that times when somebody goes in and out of the house? A lot of them do. So explain why this is so significant, Nicole. Well, it's so important, and you're so right, of course. Immediate family members are absolutely always going to be someone that the police need to examine to determine whether or not they could potentially be a suspect. Obviously, in this case, I'm in the same boat that you're in and completely believe the mother. But it's still a very relevant inquiry and incredibly important that this information is documented correctly because a defense attorney, you can expect, will be examining this timeline in the context of the suspect that is ultimately arrested for the crime and put on trial.

So they need to know, was all of this data collected? Was it recorded accurately? Is it possible that there was an alibi for the person who's ultimately accused? And you know, Nicole DeBoer Hodge Club, it's not just, it's your job to cover every base. It is your job to explore every avenue, whether you believe mom or don't. I do. But it's not just proving your case. Number one is your job. It's your ethical duty. Number two, if you want to win your case, you have to. And number three, you want to shoot down any cockamamie defense they may have before they even raise it. You know, attack them before they can attack you. Let's pick it back up where we were with John Limley. In fact, no one had heard from Elizabeth since 730 that morning.

Worried, Jacqueline starts calling her daughter's cell phone. The calls go straight to voicemail. Jacqueline Medina heads home to the apartment the two of them share. And more. On the way to her apartment, Jacqueline Medina calls Elizabeth's phone nonstop, each call going to voicemail. When Medina gets home, the door is unlocked. Inside, nothing seems out of place. When Jacqueline goes into the bathroom, she pulls back the shower curtain, finding Elizabeth Medina unconscious. She calls 911 for help. Okay, that actually makes me nauseous, Karen Stark. The thought of pulling back your shower curtain and seeing the one you love the most, your world, your heart, your music, your air is lying there dead in her pajamas.

I mean, I don't know how this mom is putting one foot in front of the other. That's such a terrible, a terrible visual. We can all picture it and how horrific it must have been. And this mom, really, Nancy, I know you love the kids. She's like you. She's dedicated to this girl. She moved here. She moved there for you. She's dedicated to this girl. She moved here. She moved there for her. It's all about her daughter. And so this is something that I can't

imagine she will ever be able to get over. She'll need a lot of help just to get through her days. Man, I know it. One step at a time. Take a listen to Crime Online's Lee Egan. The Edna Police Department received a call of an unresponsive juvenile at about 7 p.m. at the Cottonwood Apartments. First responders worked to save the teen's life, but she's pronounced dead at the scene. Jacqueline Medina tells KTRK that there was no forced entry into the apartment and there are only two keys. Jacqueline Medina has one and Elizabeth had the other. According to the teen's aunt, she was still in her pajamas, leading the family to believe she was murdered that morning before school. Well, that makes absolute sense. Elaine Ardeas joining me, senior investigative crime reporter at The Messenger. Elaine Ardeas, again, thank you for

being with us. Tell me about the apartment complex. And just because there's no forced entry, that doesn't mean that the killer is someone known to the victims. You know, somebody knocks at my door. I think I've got the twins trained. I look out first. I see who it is. I ask, even though I can see them, who is it? And I hear what they say.

Is it an Instacart? Well, did I order an Instacart? Is it an Amazon? Did I order an Amazon? But a 16 year old girl, somebody may have knocked at the door. I don't know if they've got a peephole. I don't know if she can see out from what I could see of the apartment. There was not a way for her to see who's on the other side of the door. So she may have just opened the door and the guy says hey can i borrow your phone the fact that she opened the door it's over so what can you tell me about this area of town elaine ardeas and do you know anything about that apartment complex these apartment complexes you know they're they're very

big but at the same time everyone knows everyone But we're talking about a 16-year-old girl getting ready for school. It's possible that there was a knock at the door, or even if she had the door unlocked. There are apartment doors, very common, they're not modernized, you know, and they don't automatically lock when you close them. You could have just opened up the door. Again, this is a town of 6,000 people. Things like this don't happen there. And so everyone trusts everyone and no one's a stranger, even if they are, you know. So the last thing on anyone's mind is that if I open the door, there's a murderer standing in front of me. So these are the kind of, you know, apartment complexes that everyone always kind of has an eye open. Do you know if they were on the bottom or the third floor?

What floor were they on of the apartment? That part I have not seen. I haven't either. And I've really looked. Jump in, Chris McDonough, about how a perp could have gotten in without the mother or the daughter knowing the perp. So, Nancy, there's a couple of ways. First of all, obviously, the suspect has to be very familiar with that geographic region, i.e. meaning the apartment complex as a whole.

So what the cops are going to do right off the bat from one of the very first things is they're going to do, as we've talked in the past about a victim risk continuum. And this is obviously a very low risk situation. So, you know, young girl getting ready for school. She's found deceased in her bathtub. And now the second question they're going to have is, okay, we've got a low risk situation here. What is the contact point here to your point on this question? And the contact point meaning, how does the suspect know that this young lady is in this apartment? Number one.

Number two, if the suspect did know she's in this apartment, who are the geographic connections within this building? And or what brought him to this building? Is it a social media hook? I.e. is he phishing for her? Is it a scenario where he knows somebody? Is he working in the area and he's been surveilling her, accidentally may have seen her? And all those variances should be taken into place or taken into consideration right from the get-go. And that would kind of set the play for him maybe using a ruse at the front door.

He opens the door. Hey, I'm the maintenance guy, and this is just a hypothetical, of course. But those are the kind of scenarios that could potentially play out in this. I'm taking a look at Cottonwood Apartments right now, and they all seem to be universally two stories with even the bottom the bottoms have a balcony or a porch of sorts and you know the number think about coberger again he's a poster boy for so many aspects of crime a sliding glass door the easiest thing in the world to get into. Okay, I want to move forward. I don't know if they know the perp or not, but I do know there was no forced entry.

And another thing, isn't it true, back to Elaine Ardea, senior crime reporter, the messenger, things looked in order. It didn't look like anything, that there had been a struggle of any sort. Right. No struggle. Nothing was taken.

Again, no forced entry. Nancy, previous break-ins would also be. Chris, go ahead, please. You're right. Previous break-ins in that geographic region and or that apartment would be critical in a case like this. You're so right. You're so right. And again, everyone jump in.

We need all the wisdom and knowledge that everybody on this panel has. And then we get a little bit of a break. Take a listen to our cut five, Crime Online. The search for a suspect begins. The day after Elizabeth's murder, Edna police released surveillance photos of a person in a vehicle of interest. The bearded man in the photo

is wearing a black Volcom hooded sweatshirt and he's seen driving a silver Ford Taurus. Police say it's possible that he has a tattoo behind his right ear. Few other details are released. And not only that, he's running. I mean, let's get real about it. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Back to you, Chris McDonough. If you don't want to bring attention to yourself, don't run from a crime scene. Has nobody watched a movie? If you want to get away with yourself, don't run from a crime scene. Has nobody watched a movie? If you want to get away with it, you walk out calmly. I mean, I don't need to help any fellas out there listening in, but he's sprinting from the area of that apartment to his four tourists.

It's like taking out an ad on Third Avenue. Find me. I did it. Yeah, absolutely, Nancy. And talk about a huge red flag. And when he gets into that car, because they are so close, believe it or not, to the U.S. border, and there are camera systems all over those highways. Man, you're not kidding. I mean, you know, Nicole DeBoer, Hutch Globe, now criminal defense attorney, former prosecutor. That's one thing I love to argue to juries. Hey, you see a state trooper come up behind you on the interstate, you might touch your brake to slow down a little bit, but do you really take off at 120 mph?

No. Flight is indicative of guilt. Now, in many jurisdictions, that cannot be instructed to the jury, the judge can't say it, but the state can still argue it. Here you got a guy running early in the morning, caught on surveillance video, straight to his car from the area of her apartment. Absolutely. And in Texas, you can most certainly make that argument as a prosecutor that flight is indeed an indicator of guilt and the person is fleeing because of a guilty conscience. And so you can certainly expect that the prosecutor ultimately, if his case goes to trial, will be making those types of arguments.

That, you know, if he's just casually walking around the apartment complex, there would be no reason for him to suddenly take off running and then jump into his car and flee the police. Dr. Barr, how do you obtain DNA from under a dead victim's fingernails? We use these little paddles that sort of scrape under the nails. We also will clip the fingernails right down to the quick, and so you not only take the nail off, but you also scrape under the nail. The other thing I wanted to mention was, I don't know if this was brought up in this case or not, but in this particular case, being that she's a young woman, we don't know what the motive is.

I would certainly want to do a sexual assault case. Oh, gosh, yes. He very well could have left DNA behind that way as well. And we've just seen in the Long Island serial killer case, Rex Heuermann, suspect number one, that hair of the suspects wife has been found on at least one or not if not more of the many, many victims, most likely a transfer from the defendant. But long story short, there's a possibility of a hair transfer, a sex assault kit, fingernails. All that would be entered into the DNA database. But then a stroke of luck. Take a listen to Jackie Howard, Crime Online. Two days after the murder of Lisbeth Medina, Edna police announced an arrest.

The suspect is a 23-year-old undocumented migrant thought to have been living in the U.S. for the past five years. His name, Rafael Govia Romero. He was captured about 75 miles north of Edna in Schulenburg, Texas, where he reportedly has family. Romero is jailed on suspicion of capital murder. KPRC reports his bond is set at $2 million. To Elaine, RD is joining us, senior crime reporter, The Messenger. Elaine, tell me everything you know about his capture. The Edna Police Department had been working with so many law enforcement agencies from the Texas Rangers to DPS to all sorts of other agencies. And they got a call that they needed.

This is the person that they were looking for. Because of the photo that was released? Because of the photos. So there was a $5,000 reward attached to it as well. And so people called in. And at that time, what we didn't know was that they started coordinating with Schulenburg, Texas police. Schulenburg is another small Texas town about an hour north of Edna. So we're talking, this is all outside of Houston. And these are these little towns that are sort of dotted along the highway. And so it's an hour north of Edna. And they coordinated with Schulenberg. They went to the house that they suspected he was at.

And it was without incident. When they went and knocked at the door, whoever answered the door said, yes, he's here. And so police arrested him at that time. Question, Elaine Ardeas. I've heard reports that we now have a COD cause of death. What is it? That she was stabbed to death. She was found stabbed to death in her pajamas in the bathtub. Take a listen to our cut 11, Dave Mack. Police now say Lizbeth Medina was stabbed to death, Her body left in the bathtub.

Rafael Gouveia Romero, 23, arrested in the murder after police and Texas Rangers acted on a tip. They went to Romero's family home in Schulenburg, seizing evidence from Romero's silver Taurus, which police say links him to Medina's death. Romero is an undocumented immigrant living in the U.S. on an expired visa, police said. Edna Police Chief Rick Boone said Romero has been in the U.S. illegally after overstaying his visa.

His family has reportedly lived in Schulenburg for about five years. Romero has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. No motive has been released for the deadly stabbing. Of course, the state never has to prove a motive, but coincidentally, I think we've got a motive. Take a listen to our cut seven, Lee Egan. Jacqueline Medina tells local news agencies that it's possible that her daughter's death is related to a recent break-in at their unit. Edna Police Chief Rick Boone says items missing from the apartment were found in Romero's possession. Details on how Romero was captured

have not been revealed, but police say Romero confessed to the murder. Jacqueline Medina does not recognize the suspect. To Nicole DeBoer Hotchglobe joining us, the brutal stabbing death of a teen girl, first thing in the morning, right after mom leaves, getting ready to go cheer. In this jurisdiction is one aggravating circumstance to seek the death penalty. Of course, particularly heinous, that's everywhere. But what about if a murder occurs during the commission of another felony, such as burglary, robbery, or rape? All of those things would make this case eligible to be considered for the death penalty, and that's something that I can guarantee, given the horrific nature of the facts of this case, this jurisdiction will be seriously considering.

I don't want this guy to just be deported. You know, very often you hear me, Chris McDonough, talk about, I got to pay for this guy's three hots and a cot. I don't mind paying for this guy's three hots and a cot until he gets the DP, which is going to be a long time if it's even sought. But you know what? Sometimes it's worth it, Chris. You're very correct, Nancy. And this is the kind of guy that is obviously showing signs that he probably would have done this again had he not been arrested.

I mean, the fact that he hides the body, he flees, he possibly could have broken in before. This is not his first rodeo and it would have kept on going. And he definitely was stealing stuff. I mean, items were at first when they went in, nothing was apparently missing. But then they realized when they got him, he had items from the home. But to hell with the items. The girl. It's all that mattered. Nancy, I'm wondering when he broke in the first time, if that was him, if he saw pictures of her.

And that's what brought him back there. That he didn't really know her, but he saw pictures, photographs. We wait as justice unfolds and our prayers are with Lisbeth's mother. She is in pure hell right now. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.