Criminology - Elizabeth Barraza

Episode Date: July 16, 2023

In 2019, Elizabeth Barraza was gunned down in front of her home in the early morning of January 25th. The whole thing was captured on the Barraza's doorbell camera with audio and video. Despite this, there have been no arrests in the case. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the brazen murder of Elizabeth Barraza. Elizabeth was holding a garage sale that morning and was setting up when the killer approached her. Her husband, Sergio, had just left for work, which has led many to believe that timing is a key part of this case. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 265 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing good.

How about you? Yeah, I've doing great. You and I are taping a little bit later in the day than we normally do. So I'm not drinking my coffee. I've already had lunch. And we'll see how it goes. Yeah. It's definitely a little bit different than doing it first thing in the morning.

We were talking before we started recording that you and I are feeling tired in the afternoons and wondering if that's a sign of old age or, what, but definitely a little different. It's a sign of something. No doubt. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Taylor Piper, Knight Spirit Studio, and Robin Gannon Moreno. So a lot of great new support.

We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks so much for supporting the show. It means a lot to us. And for anyone else that would like to, you can go to patreon.com slash criminology to sign up. All right. Let's jump right in. This week's episode is about a case that.

has a huge online following and is a favorite for the citizen detective and web sleuth community to dissect and discuss due to the ample clues in the case. It's a case that to many should be solved based on what there is to work with, but it's not as of yet despite a $50,000 reward for information. This is a murder case that is unlike many because the killer is caught on surveillance video and audio committing the crime, as is his getaway vehicle, despite all that. Four years later, there have been no arrests. We are talking about the murder of 29-year-old Elizabeth Barraza. Elizabeth Marie Nellie, who went by Liz, was born on June 26, 1989, in Elk Grove Village, Illinois,

the parent's Robert and Rosemary. She had an older brother, Robert. During her life, Liz lived in Illinois, Missouri, and Florida. and eventually the family wound up in the spring Texas area, where Liz graduated from Klein-Collins High School in 2008. Liz kept busy, and she had a lot of varied interest. She was a huge Chicago Cubs fan and loved Harry Potter books. She was into Star Wars and cosplay. It was clear that she had an adventurous and fun side.

Following high school, Liz went to college spending our freshman year at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nagadoches, Texas, before transferring to Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas for the 2009 academic year. Liz graduated from Sam Houston State University with a bachelor's degree in psychology in 2012. It was while at Sam Houston that Liz met her future husband, Sergio Barraza. Liz and Sergio seemed to be a great match. They had a lot of fun together. They got along well. They both loved movies. And like Liz, Sergio was also into Star Wars and cosplay.

In fact, they were both so into Star Wars that they wound up, joining the South Texas Squadron of the 501st Legion, a worldwide organization of Star Wars fans that create costumes for their cosplay. They wound up getting married in February 2014 and bought a nice two-story home at 8623 Cedar Walk Drive in Tom Ball, Texas. Tom Ball is a middle-class city of almost 12,000 people located about 35 miles northwest of the center of Houston. They were excited to have a nice home and a quiet and safe development. They added a security system with Nest audio and video recording capability because they had

been burglarized at their old apartment and they wanted to be secure in their new home. Liz worked at the Rosen Group as a data reporter and Sergio worked with his father, Oscar Barraza Sr. as a crew chief installing flooring for almost five years. Their life, life together seemed great. They seemed happy to everyone that knew them and had a lot of friends. Liz was known as a kind of person who would dress up in her Star Wars attire to try and cheer up sick kids at the hospital. In that spirit, she was also an organ donor. She wanted to help other people, if anything ever happened to her. To celebrate their five-year wedding anniversary, Liz and Sergio planned a trip to Orlando, Florida. They were going to go to Universal Studio,

Wizarding World of Harry Potter. For Christmas in 2018, Sergio gave Liz a Harry Potter suitcase, which she had already packed for their trip. She was really excited. They were scheduled to head to Orlando on January 27, 2019. On January 25th, two days before they were going to leave for their trip, Elizabeth had a garage sale. It was a Friday. It's not clear if Liz called out sick from work or already had the day off, but either way, she didn't go to work that day. She got up early to run to Starbucks and get coffee, and was back home in just a few minutes, in time the setup before the sun rose. By all accounts, Liz and Sergio were doing well financially. Liz just wanted to try and sell few unwanted items to get some extra cash for the trip to Orlando. This garage sale was

sort of last minute. Each year before they took a vacation, they would hold a yard sale, and this year was no different. They figured that they could get rid of some stuff that they didn't need anymore, just get some extra spending cash at the same time for vacation. It's probably something that a lot of people do. So, more if they're headed to Universal Studios. Have you ever been to this wizarding world of Harry Potter? I haven't. It is unbelievable. I'm actually a pretty big Harry Potter fan.

My wife got me into the books, you know, a long time ago, way before, you know, the movies ever came out. And then obviously my kids were into Harry Potter. We took a trip there maybe four years ago. And I was just. blown away by the size of it, the scope, the things that you could do, the things that you could buy. I mean, if you're a Harry Potter fan, it is an amazing place to go. That sounds like a place that Sergio and Liz definitely would have enjoyed that. And I can see why

they wanted to go there. Yeah. And that's kind of where my thought was headed. I could see as well why they would pick that as a destination, given the fact that they were both so. to Harry Potter. Liz had been preparing for the garage sale for a while, gathering items for about a month before finally deciding to actually hold the sale. Only two signs advertising the sale were put up. And Liz put them up on Thursday night, the night before the sale. She didn't advertise the sale on Facebook or any neighborhood groups,

but anyone who drove past the entrance of the neighborhood overnight would have seen the signs. Liz didn't advertise the garage sale on social media or really anywhere else. But she and Sergio did tell a handful of people about it. Liz's father, Robert, was unemployed at the time and was going to come by during the day and bring some of his unwanted items to sell, but he didn't end up making it over that day. Before he left for work, Sergio helped Liz set up a lot of stuff, especially some of the bigger and heavier items. It's not clear why he did. He didn't, did this, but Sergio reportedly told Liz to arm the alarm to the house while she was out in the driveway. If she needed to run in suddenly, or if anyone snuck in while she wasn't paying attention,

the alarm would go off. At 6.48 a.m., Sergio pulled out of the driveway and headed to work. He was scheduled to meet his dad at Lowe's that morning to pick up supplies for their job. After Sergio left, Liz continued to set up items, listening to music as she did. The sound of the music would be captured on her nest doorbell, which recorded both audio and video. On that morning, it would capture a lot more. At 6.52 a.m. with the sun not fully up yet, a neighbor's surveillance camera with a good view of the Barraza's home and driveway captured what appeared to be the first curious shopper of the day, a black four-door Nissan truck, drives past the Barraza home and makes a three-point

turn before stopping at the end of the Barazza's driveway. Someone gets out of the driver's door and walks up the driveway toward Liz. And I say someone because this footage is a bit grainy and you can't really see a lot of detail. It's not even clear if it's a man or a woman. They're wearing what looks to be knee or thigh high white go-go style boots and a white robe coat or dress. They may have long hair or be wearing a wig. The Barazasas Nes, Nesk, camera system captured some of the audio, but most of the area where Liz was standing was out

of frame. Although it showed some of the items she had set up, the camera mostly shows the porch and the view of the driveway is blocked by the sidewall of the garage. It's clear from the nest audio that the person walking from the truck is talking to Liz, who then turns down her music that she's listening to and greets the person with what sounds like a cheery good morning. Seconds later, on the video from the neighbor's home, you can see the person extend their right arm toward Liz. As Liz screams, three shots ring out. She falls back onto the ground and the suspect steps toward her and shoots her one last time before running down the driveway and whatever loose garment they were wearing was flung behind them as they ran. They jumped back

into the black Nissan truck before speeding off in the direction they had come from. At 6.53, a neighbor crossed the street called 911 to report the gunshots. They were looking out the window and saw the black truck drive off. Police were dispatched to the scene within two minutes. Other neighbors who had heard their shots also called 911. At 655, video captures the Nissan truck driving back by the Baraza home in the other direction. The driver does not slow down at all as they passed Liz lying in her driveway. At 6.59, constables from Harris County's precinct 4 arrive at the scene, and they found Liz in her driveway mortally injured.

They called in medical assistance, and due to the severity of her injuries, Liz was taken by life flight to a hospital by 7 a.m. A. B on the lookout was issued for the black Nissan truck. At 7.05 a.m., a.m., a.m., a.m., a. deputy he spotted a black Nissan truck heading south on Kikindal Road five minutes later. Once there was backup, the truck was pulled over by police. The driver was said to have valid reasons to be in the area for work and was let go. So I don't know about your neighborhood, Mike, but mine is pretty quiet early in the morning. And with gunshots going off, a truck speeding down the road, it seems like it's going to draw a lot of attention. And in this case, it did. Multiple people are calling 911. Someone looked out in

time to see the black truck go by and then, you know, video captures that truck going by again. It's so it seems like there's a lot of potential witnesses there here that are going to help police. Yeah, there does. And I'm actually kind of surprised because it's so early in the morning. and maybe that's just because I don't get up that early. A lot of people do. They got to get ready for work. The one thing that is really jumping out at me so far to this point is the timing of everything. And how quickly things took place.

Obviously, Liz and Sergio were up very early. I mean, she went to go get coffee. They did some work. and then he left the house at 648. I mean, that's early for me. But from that 648 time period, she shot, the police show up, they even pull over a black Nissan truck in the span of what's about 15 minutes or so. It all happens so quickly.

Yeah, and the black truck is a big factor in this case and the fact they were able to identify one and pull it over so quickly. you know, that's really interesting. And, you know, obviously trucks are common. But as we'll detail a little bit later on, Nissan trucks specifically aren't as common as, say, Chevy or Ford. So just having one in their area at that right time, it seemed like they had a break right away, but then come to find out, according to police, the driver had valid reasons

to be there and wasn't suspicious and they were let go. Well, and this is a recent case. And so we're talking about. you know, ring or nest type doorbell video and audio. And we have been a lot lately in, in some of the more recent cases. You know, I have one of these doorbell cameras myself. The only problem with it is just like we described in this scenario. You know, I have a kind of garage wall that goes down by my front entrance. So some of the garage is obscured from the video,

and it sounds like that's exactly what happened in this situation as well. At 7.19 a.m., Harris County Constables entered the Barraza home to search for any other victims. This set off the home's alarm. Sergio got this alert on his phone and spoke to police who were at the scene over his nest intercom. It was then that he was told by detectives through the doorbell camera that he needed to come home. Liz's parents also got this notification, and after calling Liz not getting an answer, they headed straight over. At 7.37 a.m., Bob and Rosemary Nellie arrived at the home. At 7.51 a.m., Sergio arrived, and he was immediately questioned.

It was a chaotic situation, and Liz's parents and husband were in shock. At Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, doctors frantically work. to save Liz's life, but her injuries were too severe. She was pronounced brain dead on Saturday afternoon, the day after she was shot. Because she was an organ donor, her heart, liver, and both kidneys were harvested along with her corneas, and as a result, Liz was able to save four lives and restore sight to one other before life support was ended on Tuesday. To those who knew Liz well, this was just one more reminder of,

who Liz was as a person, kind and giving person. Even in death, this shined through. Police continued working the crime scene and canvassing the neighborhood. They hoped that witnesses may have seen something, or at the very least, that any of them that had home surveillance systems may have captured something that would help them find Liz's killer. When word spread about what happened to Liz, people couldn't believe it. She didn't seem to have any enemies. It was clear from the video that Liz wasn't robbed. She was essentially executed, and her killer didn't try and take anything. Many people believe that Liz's death was some sort of hit, and her parents seemed to agree. Liz's mom, Rosemary, told Box 26 Houston, I don't think the person

that shot her is the one that wanted her dead. Rosemary seemed to be suggesting the existence of at least one co-conspirator. She added, I think it was well planned. I think she was definitely the target. I don't know why. And I definitely get what she's saying. I mean, what other conclusion could you draw. This was either someone who wanted Liz dead, walked up, shot her multiple times, and fled, or you're talking about someone just driving around randomly, seeing her outside, and wanting to kill someone, but not specifically her. And to me, the former sounds much more plausible.

Not to say that the second scenario doesn't happen because it does, but I think if you were looking at it percentage-wise, you'd have to lean towards the first one. When police reviewed all of the footage from the area, it revealed some additional clues that made it seem as if Liz was indeed being targeted and someone waited for the right time to strike. At around 2 a.m. Five hours before the shooting, the Nissan truck is spotted on a neighbor's surveillance camera, driving past the Baraza home. It's unknown where it is from 2 to 6 a.m. But at 6.47 a.m., the truck turns on to Princeton Place Drive from Kikindal Road and turns into the Goddard School parking lot.

10 seconds later, the truck pulls out of the parking lot and onto a size of. Street. Simultaneously, Sergio leaves for work. It's unknown whether Sergio saw the Nissan truck as he left the neighborhood, likely heading the opposite direction on Princeton Place Drive, as he headed to Kikindal Road. Unfortunately, the cameras at the Goddard School weren't working at the time. So the only footage they had was from a business across the street. Seconds after Sergio left his home for work, the Nissan truck pulled out and drove to the Barraza home. Authorities believe Liz was shot with a medium caliber revolver because there were no casings found at the scene, and the killer didn't stop to pick anything up. A 380 caliber bullet was recovered

from the scene. If you look carefully in the surveillance footage, the first shot seems to miss Liz hitting the house behind her, but it actually went through her neck. The other three bullets were still in her body at the hospital, two in her chest, and one in her face. It's not clear what condition the bullets recovered or in, but perhaps if the murder weapon is ever found, police may be able to link it to these bullets via ballistics. Despite the whole thing being on camera, there are still a lot of unknowns, and neighborhood cameras didn't capture. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency?

We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsuited. until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Sure, the truck's final path as it exited the neighborhood. There is some indication that perhaps the killer did not know this neighborhood well. For example, after the shooter fired multiple shots, grabbing the attention of neighbors,

who were awake, they drove off quickly in the direction that they'd come from, but just minutes later, drove back by the scene, which would be risky as neighbors would be looking out their windows. Some people theorized that the killer drove by to make sure Liz was dead, but it seems quite possible that they had gone the wrong way and needed to risk driving back by the home in order to get out of the development. The killer's truck was last captured by camera driving down Sandusky Drive. Sandusky Drive ends at a cul-de-sac, a dead end, and the truck didn't come back down Sandusky, past any cameras to get out of there,

so that leaves two possibilities. One is that the killer lived someplace on that street, and maybe parked their truck in a garage. The more likely scenario is that when they came to the dead-end cul-de-sac, they didn't want to risk turning around and driving yet again through the development, where they could be seen by more witnesses or responding place. police, so they likely went off road at the cul-de-sac and drove a short distance before getting back on Kikindal Road, which was outside of the development. This would have put the killer on

the same road where, coincidentally, a black Nissan truck that we mentioned earlier was pulled over by police. According to authorities, the suspect's truck was spotted on several commercial cameras, which suggests possibly that the truck did make it out to the main road. I think one unfortunate thing here is that despite all these camera sightings, this truck being caught multiple times, that somehow the license plate just wasn't captured in that video, because that would have possibly led to the case being solved by now. Yeah, I get that. I mean, I think one of the issues with the type of cameras that most people have is that they wouldn't catch a license plate, right? They would catch the broad side of the truck.

maybe is it passed by, but that's about it. Yeah, because I think most people have their cameras for surveillance systems set up to protect their property, maybe the entrance to their home, their driveway. They're not really worried about what's going out, what's happening out on the street. So I think maybe that's where some of the failure to capture this license plate came from. And a lot of them probably wouldn't be angled like down the street to catch it, you know, moving away. So there are definitely a lot of questions in this case. Did the killer know that there was going to be a garage sale?

Or did they just happen upon Liz, who was outside by herself that morning? We mentioned that Liz had only hung up a couple of signs the night before. She didn't post it on social media. But a few people that knew Liz and Sergio did know about the garage sale. it seems clear that somehow the killer knew exactly when Sergio left for work that morning because it was just seconds after he left the house and headed for work that the killer drove to the Barraza home. That doesn't seem like a coincidence.

Liz took that day off of work for the sale. Had she gone to work that day and left on her normal schedule, she would have already been gone. So, I mean, I think these types of things, and especially that, have caused a lot of online sleuth to ask, who knew their schedule so well, knowing to pull out of the Goddard School parking lot at the time they did, the exact same time that Sergio was leaving for work, but was unfamiliar enough with the neighborhood to need to scout out the location ahead of the time. It's unlikely that the suspect didn't know about the garage. because without it, they would have been too late.

Other people wonder why the killer didn't strike when Liz was outside alone on her way to Starbucks that morning. There would have been an opportunity on her way to and from the car, and she also sat in her car for a minute before she had it off. The killer could have followed her and shot her along the route to her from Starbucks, but they didn't. Was the killer waiting for surgery to leave? If so, was it because they didn't want him to intervene, or because they didn't want to risk him getting hurt, too? Then again, some people think that Sergio himself had some role in Liz's murder. Sergio usually left around 7 a.m., according to one of the neighbors who spoke to officers that morning. He left a little bit over 10 minutes early that day.

Knowing this makes the timing of the killer striking even more interesting. The audio and video clues in this case have been dissected by not only police, but by online sluice as well. You can find a lot of this material online to go over so that you can draw. draw your own conclusions, people have spent countless hours, breaking down and replaying the audio and video, trying to see what was said between Liz and her killer to see what the full interaction tells us. But the audio and video are not of the best quality. So different people hear and see different things. One thing seems clear to everyone, though, and that is that the killer walked briskly towards Liz and said something to her.

person was up close to her very quickly and could have immediately opened fire if they just wanted to kill her and get away. But that's not how it happened. We can see that there's some kind of interaction between Liz and the killer that lasts several seconds. In the video, it seems as if Liz jumps back a bit, perhaps afraid after seeing the gun or is afraid of something the killer said. It appears that the killer is holding the gun with his or her right hand, and then raises their left hand towards Liz, who's facing them. Liz appears to raise her right hand toward the killer, so perhaps the killer gave her something, although that has never been released by police of true.

One rumor that circulated online is that one of Sergio's relatives let it slip, that the killer handed Liz a note of some kind. A second later, she screamed and shots rang out. If this note rumor is true, it's not being shared by police, and people have speculated endlessly about what might have been contained in that note if it exists. We do know for sure that if a killer handed Liz anything, he or she didn't take it with them when they left, because after shooting, the killer never stopped to pick anything up and ran off.

At the end of the day, we don't know for sure if the killer even handed Liz a note or anything else, for that matter. And my thought, Morph, is that the police, if they had a note, probably wouldn't release that. obviously we know they haven't released it, but we don't know if they have a note. My thought is if they did, they just wouldn't release that information. They certainly wouldn't release what was in the note because that would be something that they would want to keep, hold back to help verify someone's story if they ever came forward.

Yeah, and it also could contain physical evidence, fingerprints, DNA, that kind of stuff. So it could be a real treasure trove and something for police to work with if it does exist. But, you know, the thing that I'm struggling with is if there was a note, why? Why the need? What would be in it? Because the person ends up shooting and killing Liz, you know, pretty quickly after handing the note to her if that's what happened. So I'm struggling with that. it doesn't seem all that likely to me.

Well, one theory that's out there is that if this is some kind of contract hit and somebody didn't like Liz or wanted her to die, that they were so strong in their hatred of her that they may have put something in that noted if it exists to say, this is why I'm doing this or something else just to shock her, even though she's about to die, because of that hate was that strong because if, as you mentioned, if they just wanted to kill her and the point was to kill her and they could have shot her, walked away, not handed her anything. But in this case, if there's something that was given, it's just a possible clue for police to work with. So it almost doesn't make sense to do something like that. So it seems like if anything

was handed to her, it was to send some kind of message to her. But would she even have had time to read it and digest it? And again, the best clues in this case, maybe those that were captured on camera and audio, but they just are not all that clear. We're still not sure whether this killer is a man or a woman. And we talked about earlier the attire and from that, it seemed as if it could have been a woman. The hair seemed to be pretty long,

although it could be a wig that, you know, someone has on. The clothes seem to be indicative of a dress or a bathrobe. some people even theorize it could be a Star Wars costume robe. And if so, maybe that points to someone in the Star Wars cosplay circle that Liz was in. Many people online have said that they see feminine qualities in the way, you know, the suspect walks or almost sachets up to Liz. But masculine qualities in the person's gate as they sprint back to the truck.

Some have even speculated that the person appears to have breasts or curves which are noticeable in the video. But could all of that have been part of a disguise? Others point out that in the video, the killer appears to be about the same height as Liz. While others are quick to point out that the driveway is on an incline and the killer is standing on a lower part appearing to be shorter than what they probably actually are. It doesn't seem as though Liz knew this person. She apparently greeted them with a good morning as if they were a potential buyer at the garage sale. But then, you know, even if she knew the killer, they could have been wearing this outfit as a disguise and she may not have recognized them at first glance. So for me, this is a pretty big part of the case. Obviously,

the killer is on video. You can see what this person is wearing. You know, the video is not great, but, you know, we mentioned it kind of like thigh high white boots. That seems to me to be something that most likely a woman would wear. But if you were trying to disguise yourself, could a man put on, you know, this type of outfit. Well, absolutely. And I, I wonder if it is a disguise. who is the person wearing that disguise for? Is it so they can walk up on Liz and she doesn't recognize them? Because if they didn't wear the disguise, Liz would have been afraid of them and she might have run away.

That's one thing that I'm puzzled about is why the need for the disguise. Well, it could be that or it could be just because, you know, the person probably knew there are, you know, there are going to be cameras around. And, you know, let's try to hide myself as much as possible. maybe even let's throw the police off into thinking that this was a woman if it was in fact a male. Yeah, the killer wanting to disguise themselves by pretending to be a woman or even if it's a woman trying to make herself look at different than she normally does. The other big clue in this case is the black Nissan truck that the killer drove. It's been caught on camera multiple times by this point.

So the idea that this person is wearing a disguise to protect what they look like, but then is caught on camera multiple times driving this black Nissan truck sort of clashes with that idea. We've mentioned that this is a big clue. And just to provide some more detail, police seem to think that this truck is a dark-colored Nissan Frontier Pro-4-X Edition crew cab, model year 2013 or newer, with a Pro-4-X sticker on the rear of the truck. This is potentially a huge clue when Nissan trucks make up a much smaller portion of the truck population compared to Chevy, Ford, or even Toyota. In short, there would not be as many Nissan trucks to sit through for police. Did the killer own that truck, or could they have borrowed it or rented it?

To date, the search for this truck in its owner hasn't led to an arrest. I just wanted to point out one thing, though, although police think this truck is a Frontier Pro 4X, which is the smaller Nissan truck, I don't want to see them rule out a Nissan Titan Pro 4.4. which is the full-size model, because I own a full-size Nissan Titan Pro 4x, and it's got a similar wheelbase to the frontier version, and the truck doesn't look that much different in size. In fact, when I viewed this video, I felt like I was looking at a truck similar to my own truck, so hopefully if police are locked in on the smaller frontier and not the larger Titan, they have good reason to be.

One last note on the suspect's truck, it had fog lights which appeared to be optional equipment at the time, but it didn't have the optional roll bar-style bar. in the bed of the truck. Later on, after the crime, the truck could have been modified. The bars could have been added to the bed of the truck, or the pro 4X sticker on the rear of the truck could have been removed. So I want to go back to this point that you were making about, you know, this person seemingly trying to disguise themselves, but then, you know, not really seeming to be all that worried about their vehicle being caught on camera. And like you said, I mean, there are a lot of Nissan trucks, but by comparison, this is not like someone driving a Ford F-150,

which is the best-selling truck. So you would think being able to find a black Nissan Pro 4x would be easier for police than it would be if it was some other type of different model. It kind of leads me to believe that maybe this person. person isn't local and therefore they weren't as worried about the truck being identified or it's someone else's trial. I just don't know. Yeah. And to your point, it's not as common a truck as, say, a white Chevy. If this was a white chevy or a white Ford, police would have just countless numbers of vehicles to scour through, but a black Nissan wouldn't be as hard to find. But here we see one was pulled over within minutes of the Bolo going out.

So just maybe a big coincidence or I wonder if, you know, more attention should be focused on that person who was in the right place at the right time. If they should have been looked at closer, could police have missed anything with that person or their truck? But, you know, then again, if somebody's coming in from three, four, five states away, are police searching out that far for black Nissan's? And I would say, no, probably not. And maybe they should be because so far they haven't found that black truck.

So maybe they need to expand that search. And I don't know what goes into rentals. If that truck was rented from someplace, how far an ability they have to go searching rentals in different states. But maybe it's worth doing because to this point it hasn't produced an arrest. Of course, one person who has gotten a lot of attention from both police and the online sleuthing community is, is Liz's husband, Sergio. And we've talked about this many times in a murder investigation. Police are always going to start with a spouse or, you know, those who are closely connected

to the victim and then work out from there. But Sergio was reportedly cooperative. He answered questions by police. He had no criminal record. And by all accounts, he and Liz were happy with each other. their relationship was solid. Police couldn't find any evidence of infidelity in the marriage. And financially, the couple was not struggling.

So there really doesn't seem to be a clear motive for Sergio to want his wife dead. But that hasn't stopped people from suspecting him. They often point to the fact that, you know, just seconds after he left for work, Liz's killer sprang into action, as if almost somehow alerted by Sergio. Many people believe and have said it online that they think Sergio hired this person to kill his wife. But like I mentioned, right, if Sergio had any motive to want his wife dead, police haven't found it. He said in an interview that he was the beneficiary of a life insurance policy Liz had, but he hadn't even collected it because he felt as though if he did, people would

suspect him even more. So he chose to wait until the case is solved. Liz was reported to have a $250,000 insurance policy that would double in the case of an accidental death or murder. But this hasn't been confirmed. Sergio was given a polygraph test and reportedly passed it. He remarried in May 22 to his second wife, Amber, which only fueled more speculation from people that maybe even she was involved and that this was part of some big plan to get Liz out of the picture. But according to Sergio,

he and Amber didn't meet until a year and a half after Liz died. And he's also said that Amber cooperated with the police and that she too passed a polygraph. So I get it more why people would look at Sergio. And I'm sure the police did as well. But we're talking here mainly about people online. And it's not to say that he couldn't have had something to do with it.

But from my viewpoint, I'm not seeing really any signs that point to his involvement in any way. What would the motive be? And I think, you know, police have struggled with that and they just haven't found anything. Well, we mentioned that he cooperated, you know, according to him, he passed a polygraph test. And there's plenty of videos people can watch out there with him being interviewed. And in my opinion, the way I interpreted, he seemed very believable when he was talking, recounting everything. At the same time, I also got this vibe that he wasn't very emotional.

And we've talked about that many times that not everyone reacts the same way to certain situations. Some people show a lot of emotion. Some people show no emotion at all. That was just my take. but to me he came across as believable, but not too emotional. So you didn't get a real Chris Watts vibe is what you're saying? No, I didn't.

He, you know, with Chris Watts, like you watched an interview with him. He just seemed like he was lying. And again, I'm not an expert with reading people or interpreting their body language or how they're talking. But just my take was that he seemed honest. but at the same time, it did jump out to me that he didn't have that much emotion. But in talking to many of these cases, we've talked about that a lot where some people just don't. But obviously, people think it is very suspicious, the timing of how everything went down.

You know, he leaves the black Nissan kind of zooms right in after him. Well, there has to be an explanation for that unless by some chance, it's just, coincidence. It would be one heck of a coincidence. And I think most people have come to the conclusion that the killer likely knew his schedule and knew that he would leave. And was maybe even surveilling and just waited for him to leave? Yeah. And that would make a lot of sense. But then you have those that say maybe he tipped them off and they said, okay, coast is clear. Surge, you just left. Let's go over and do this. while most people couldn't think of anyone with the reason to hurt Liz,

and they thought that she was well liked. When questioned by authorities the day of the murder, Sergio gave the name of a woman. He believed could have had an issue with Liz. She was a fellow member of the 501st Legion. And according to the police report, Sergio did not know of anyone else who would want to hurt his wife. It seems that nothing ever came of this tip, though.

according to some people, Liz played a role in the hierarchy of the 501st Legion that caused friction with some members. But would it cause enough friction to want her debt? Many people feel that Sergio's dad may have had a reason to want Liz out of the picture. Sergio's paychecks from his father had apparently been bouncing, and there's been a lot of speculation online that his father was spending the business money on having affairs, and Liz confronted at him about this. But if checks were bouncing, how could you afford to pay someone to kill Liz for him? There are unsourced explanations that clients were simply slow to pay Sergio's dad for work they did. And in turn, he was slow to pay out his employees, including his son, Sergio.

And again, we're not accusing anybody of anything. We're merely bringing up, you know, a lot of the topics that you can see online about this case. The one thing that I would say, is that, you know, just because a business was bouncing checks doesn't mean that somebody wouldn't have the means to pay someone for a hit. You know, maybe they could have money that they keep in a safe at the house that's separate from the business. Or maybe they even have something worth a lot of money that they're willing to give to somebody. Investigators are also looking outside of the family at possible suspects.

They went to Miami, Florida, to, interview a person of interest. And this is interesting for a couple of reasons. The first is because Liz was about to go to Florida on her trip. The second reason is that Florida was one of the places she had once lived. So was the person of interest someone from Liz's past? Could someone have wanted to stop her from going to Florida for whatever reason? Or was it just coincidental? Could the person in Miami be someone from Texas who had moved to Florida in the years since the murder. There's a bit of a rabbit hole regarding a Florida suspect who may or may not know

someone who owns a black Nissan frontier. Some of the online discussion seems to get a couple of people mixed up. But there is a lot of talk about a cousin or a mistress from Florida who had a neighbor that owned a black Nissan. But again, you know, these are all rumors. You have to take all of this stuff with a grain of salt. I reached out to Paul Holes who worked on Liz's case for an upcoming TV show. He told me something interesting that shortly before she was murdered,

someone had fired a gunshot into Liz's place at work. I don't know all the details about that shooting incident, but the timing of it is interesting. Other people have theorized that Liz saw something or learned something at work that she wasn't supposed to know, and that she was targeted because of that. But at the end of the day, it's just a theory. There's no clear path to any motive in this case that we can see.

Despite the lack of a motive, it's still surprising to many people that this case hasn't been solved yet. There's audio. There's video. We have a clear description of a truck. And yet the case remains unsolved. Then again, we saw that same frustration in the Delphi murders, another high profile case with audio and visual evidence. Yet it took years for a suspect to be apprehended. And that case seems to be on the verge of a resolution and justice, but it took a long time.

I think the hope here is that with patience and determination by investigators in Liz's case, we can see the same type of result. There's still a reward for up to $50,000 for information in Liz's case. If you have any information about the murder of Elizabeth Barraza, please call 713-22-2 tips, and share what you know. You can also go to Crimstoppers.org to submit your tip. To stay up the date on the case

and find out more details about it, you can visit who killed Liz Barraza.com, which is maintained by Liz's family. My takeaway here at the end is that Liz's life was cut short and by all accounts, she was a nice person or friendly person. She seemed to be fun, outgoing,

and just not really have any enemies. And then she's gunned down in cold blood in her driveway. You know, what kind of person does that? What motivated them to do that? You know, the motive here just escapes me. And it's just real sad to see this happen to someone like her. Well, and I think the motive is the key, though, right?

We talked about it quite a bit. Police don't seem to have any clear indication of what it could be. They're probably going to need to establish that to figure out who this was. was or be told who it was and then find out later what the motive was. Either way, you know, to me, that's the kind of missing piece here. Because once you get that piece, I think then things start to fall into place and, you know, police know, what avenues they need to go down. But without that motive, I think it's very tough. And, you know, that's where I think Sergio comes in. And, you know, you know, there seems to be no motive for him to kill his wife.

You know, we talked about it. By all accounts, their marriage was good. Now, we know from the many cases that we've done that relationships from the outside looking in can appear to be something other than what they really are. But I don't think that anybody has come out regarding this case and said it wasn't what you think it was. Now, many people jump on him for getting remarried. But if it's true that, you know, he didn't meet this woman until a year and a half after Liz's murder. Well, what's that got to do with anything? I'm not ruling him out.

I'm just saying I don't see anything pointing to him. And it seems like in this case as in every properly investigated murder case, the victim's life is sort of dissected and put under a microscope by police. and they're looking for anything, anything that jumps out, anything out of the ordinary. Is there, you know, arguments, domestic violence, jealousy, affairs, anything at all. And the complete lack of that in this case is sort of baffling. I tell you, one of the things that jumps out to me is this whole cosplay avenue, you know, this theory that there was friction with someone in this Legion, whatever this thing is that she was, that Liz was involved in, you know, it's hard to imagine that

someone would kill someone else over, you know, some type of friction in that type of arena. But we've seen people be killed for less. So I don't know. I just don't know how much to that there really is. And to me, just the way she was gunned down and cold blood so ruthlessly, even if it was just in that person's. mind, they had a reason to be angry with her just because they were able to do that so easily to her. So at the end of the day, it could be someone that made an advance toward her or someone had a crush

on her and she didn't respond. Who knows? But in their mind, they may have perceived it as something she did really terribly to them and had a grudge against her. We just don't know. And I think hopefully during the investigation, at some point we're going to find. out what happened and who was responsible. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But that's it for our episode on Elizabeth Barraza. If you love the show, but you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating, leave a review, all of that helps.

Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the criminology podcast really goes a long way. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion in the fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology. But Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode.

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