Law&Crime Sidebar - Another Texas Woman Found Dead on Boat Near Where Mom Was Found Hanging Off Dock

Episode Date: June 24, 2024

Police in League City, Texas are investigating another death at a local marina. The latest victim, who has not been publicly identified, was found dead on a boat. Last month, Giselle Salazar-Tapia, who lived on a boat at the marina with her boyfriend, was found hanging from the dock. But police suspect foul play. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber speaks with League City Police Department Lieutenant Eric Cox and Detective Keith Bell to get more details about the two cases.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get 50% off of confidential background reports at https://www.truthfinder.com/lcsidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A small city in Texas is back in the headlines after another woman is found dead at a local marina. We bring on two investigators from this police department to talk about this new case. Is this just a coincidence or is there a connection? Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. We first told you earlier this month about a bizarre death at a marina in League City, Texas.

30-year-old Giselle Salazar Tapia was found dead on May 31st, hanging from the dock. Now, it's been reported that the mother of four had been living with her boyfriend, James Hart, on a boat that was docked in the marina. And law enforcement, they suspect foul play here. Yeah, according to police, Giselle's body was positioned, rather strangely. It was partially submerged. One arm was up in the air. So that would suggest that she died somewhere else, that she was hung off the side of the dock, perhaps to try to make it look like a suicide. We actually spoke with Joseph Scott Morgan, forensic death investigator,

about this. If she was lying and let's just let's just say she was lying on her on her stomach, her arm is extended like this. The other thing they're going to see is a presentation of post-war. morbidity. So the blood would have settled anteriorly like this. And you can't get rid of it, Jesse. And so that's the other thing they're going to see. If she is even partially submerged in the water, she was laying in a prone position, arm extended above her head. And you've got blood settling post-mortem, which happens. And again, that's a measurable event. Then that's going to be demonstrated as well. And then the League City Police Department says they have two persons of interest in Giselle's murder, but no arrests have been made. Police only described

them as, quote, people who were recently the closest to her. And police also revealed that officers have responded to several calls in the past at that boat for domestic disturbances. Giselle's boyfriend, James Hart, told local media outlets in Texas that a lot of people were suspicious of him and his possible involvement in all this, but he said he loved Giselle with all of his life. He said he had assumed she had gotten up during the night to use the bathroom, but that she never came back to bed. Okay, with all of that as a backdrop, now a second woman has been found dead at that same arena. And the League City Police Department said that investigators have not ruled out a possible connection between her death and Giselle's death. Remember,

she was found June 19th, almost three weeks after the discovery of Giselle. that's weird. Okay, so now I want to bring in two special guests. I'm joined right now by League City Police Department Lieutenant Eric Cox and Detective Keith Bell. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming on. And also, thank you so much for the work that you do day in and day out. I really just want to start right now with this latest development. What can you tell us about this second death? Well, apparently it appears to look like an overdose. And what gives you that indication at this point? Has the autopsy report come back, or is that still being evaluated?

Well, narcotics was found in the area around the deceased person, and that's the information that we have at this moment. But the autopsy, it's still being conducted, right? No, sir. That's going to take time. Oh, I'm sorry. How long does I usually take? It depends. It depends on what the ME looks at when they look at the body, and it depends on also the time. toxicology report and how long that's going to take. Right. Do we have an identity of this second person? We do. And law enforcement at this point is not going to share it. Do we know when we might find out who this person is? We can. The next to Ken's been contacted. She was, her name was

Alita. And I can't remember last name to slip as you asked me. But her, Her first name was Alita. She was, her parents were out of Maryland, but she didn't have any family down here locally that we could find, but her parents were notified last week. And was she in contact with her family? What brought her down here? As best we could tell, she moved,

she's been separated from her family for quite a while. Her mother and father knew that she was down here in this area, but I don't think they knew exactly where she was at. But they found out and we were able to get in contact with them last week and make the notification with them. I have to ask you, you know, the second death at this marina in such a short time, is this, what should we know about this marina? Does anything like this ever happened before or is this very odd that we're having these two deaths at the same location? So it's not common to have two deaths of overdoses in that frame of time.

around here in our city. I mean, larger cities, obviously, you have more people. You know, there's more propensity for that to happen. The location of both of these deaths, and we still don't know with Giselle, whether, you know, it was an overdose or homicide because we're still waiting on those talks results to come back from the, from the EME's office, along with the full autopsy report. Like Detective Bell said, we're everything with the second death with Alita is looking like it was a it was probably an accidental overdose but as far as it been being connected a person of interest has been involved or been involved with the second one and it actually happened on his boat so we don't know what what drug for sure may be involved or what may be the cause of death

until we get the reports back for but for something to happen in that time frame out there in that vicinity it's just kind of luck of the draw I mean it could it could happen anywhere before it to happen out there, literally, you know, 100 yards away from where the last one happened at in that time frame is not common around here. Something you just said, person of interest, last time we reported on the story, our understanding was there were two people of interest. Are you saying that one of those people of interest was Giselle's boyfriend? Well, generally, and like I'd said before in some of the other interviews, when we start

the investigations, everything is treated. as a homicide until we know they're not. And generally, from what we've been able to gather, he was the last person to have seen Giselle alive. And homicide investigations, that's generally where you start working as the last person to see them alive. Some of the statistics that have come up

over the last few years, the Bureau of Justice statistics are shown, like in 2021, they did a study that with female murder victims, normally about 76% of the time, the female knew the person that killed them. And then approximately 50% of the time, it was the intimate partner that was responsible for it. So we are still, we haven't charged anybody yet, but he is a person of interest because he was the last person to see her alive and she was last seen on his boat. This is a horrible, horrible story. And whenever I hear stuff like this, I'm always saying to myself, how well do you really know the people in your life?

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information like phone numbers, location history, criminal and traffic records, including possible arrests, criminal convictions. I don't have those, but you get the idea. And you can use TruthFinder to look up information about all sorts of people, new social media friends, potential dates, people you buy or sell to online. How about the parents of your child's friend? I know, but you can never be too careful. Here's the kicker. Right now, you can get 50% off of your first month of confidential background reports. Just go to truthfinder.com slash LC sidebar. Law enforcement, and we did an episode on this as well, had, you know, suggested that the positioning of Giselle's body is one of the reasons you might suspect foul play was involved. This second individual who died at the marina, was their body positioned in a similar way?

As best we could tell, when we responded out there for the second report last week, she was found sitting on the deck of the boat inside in the cabin area. She was sitting almost like she was sitting in style, but she had one leg crossed. One leg, her left leg was straight out in front of her, and then she was bent over at the waist with her upper body across her leg. So according to what we were told by the person who was on the boat with her the last time,

she was sitting alive. She was sitting up facing away from him and similar to that position, but she was sitting upright with her legs like that. And then when he woke up and found her, she was obviously folded over. And I'm sorry, this is a relation to Alita, right? Yes, Alita.

Yeah. And who is this gentleman you're talking about that saw her in this position? It was the boat owner, the other person of interest in Giselle's case. So I'm sorry, just to clarify, you're saying that the person of interest in Giselle's case, and correct me if I'm wrong, her love, her love interest, her boyfriend, the person she was staying with, was the one who had called in or saw Alita in this position? No, it was the other person. It was the other person of interest who we haven't named yet.

I see. It was his boat. It didn't involve the boyfriend of Jezell. It was the other person of interest in Jezell's case. So if I'm just, I apologize, just to clarify, there is one person of interest who may have a connection between both of these deaths at the same arena. Correct. Interesting.

And he operates and owns a boat at this marina? He has two slips at the marina. He's got two boats actually there next to each other that are more next to each other at the marina. So they are on an opposite pier away from where James, the boyfriend's boat is. They're not on the same pier, but they're within sight of each other across one of the water access ways. And how far away is that? I mean, if the best you can tell us, how far would that distance? Yeah, maybe 100 yards or maybe a little less. So in other words, Alita's body was found, and correct me from around, about 100 yards away from Giselle's body.

Right, but she was, Alita was actually on the inside of a boat where, you know, Giselle's body was found out, you know, hanging on that piling from here. By the way, in this area of League City is drug addiction? serious issue. Can you walk us through what the community is like and what we should be knowing about this? Well, from the time that Giselle died, we've had, I want to say over 20 plus calls that we've had a call there every day. So we have plenty of disturbances out there. We have plenty of narcotics users out there. The drug of choice seems to be methamphetamine, but they've also used numerous drugs like GHB and

Yeah, and look, I know that's not specific to that community. It's a crisis that's happening across the country. Do any indication that Giselle and Alita knew each other? Yes, they knew each other. Anything you can elaborate? Were they friends? Did they work together? Not that I know of. I know that they knew each other. I know that they talked to each other. I just don't know how intimate that relationship was. And how's the community feeling right now? Are they concerned that there's these two deaths at the same location? Absolutely.

We get calls every day regarding what's going on with that marina. And what do you tell them? Well, I mean, it's active and open investigation. The only thing we can do is do our jobs and do it right. And if we do that, then we should be able to help the community. community. And is there any update in Giselle's case? The last I heard, you know, was that they were waiting on toxicology reports. Is there anything new that you can share with us? Not at the moment. I mean, we're still waiting on the toxicology report. And when that comes in,

then we'll proceed forward with anything else we need to do. What can the community do or anybody who's watching this program do? Because obviously we covered the death of Giselle. Now we are learning about the death of Alita. You mentioned there's a common connection there. What can the community do to help you guys? If you have any information on Giselle's death, please give us a call and that would greatly help us out and investigate in her case. And has, by the way, just going back to this marina, anything in the past with this marina, has there been, is a,

maybe not a hotbed of criminal activity, but anything about the past of this marina we should know about? Well, there's been a couple of overdoses out there. Um, We had a suspicious death last year where someone actually drowned and ended up in the water who lived at that marina. So we've had multiple things happen at that marina that should be alarming. Why do you think that's happening? Well, part of it is because the way that the marina is set up, some of those slips are what you would call live in. Like they have sewer and they have a line hooked up where people can hook the sewer up to the side of the boat.

and they have shore power where they can plug in and get power from the pier. But a lot of those slips out there are non-livable. They're just made for a boat to be tied up. They're not made for somebody to go out there and live on the boat. And each one of those slips that are out there, they're not owned by the marina. They're owned by an individual. So it would be the same as like somebody buying a condo and then subletting the condo to somebody else.

So nobody knows who's supposed to be there or not other than this may be a non-livable slip. there's a boat there with somebody living on it. So it kind of ties the hands of the slip owners association and the property owners of the marina about trying to get those people out of there because a lot of the a lot of the boats that are out there, the boat is just supposed to be there, but there are actually people living on the boat that don't have power and don't have sewer. So anytime you go out there, you don't know how many people are supposed to be out there versus how many people are, for lack of a better term, they're squatting on their boats and those slips. And when you have that kind of, when you have that kind of a transient population in that

place, the drugs and the crime that accompanied that, the thefts and the burglaries and stuff, that tends to follow right along with it. I appreciate you explaining that. That gives us definitely a different perspective of this location. Going back to Giselle for a second, anything you can explain to us about how she ended up there living with this gentleman on this boat, how she ended up at this marina? As far as I can tell during my investigation, she had a previous relationship with another tenant out there and she ended up meeting James and they ended up having a relationship where she went from living on one boat to living on a next boat.

And how has he responded to the idea of that, you know, he's a person of interest or maybe or, you know, being, he's being reported about. There's a, as we talked about, there is a sense that this could be foul play. How has he responded to this? He's been cooperative. Every single time we've called, and that's going to show up. He's showing up. Yeah.

Well, listen, gentlemen, this is a very eerie story to begin with and a very eerie development. Hopefully, anybody who's watching this or listening to us can provide you some more information. And obviously, you've provided a message to the community. Should the community be alarmed at this point? Should they be concerned? Or do you feel that these could be isolated incidents within that area? At this moment from the information we have, it seems to be isolated incidents. League City Police Department Lieutenant Eric Cox, Detective Keith Bell,

thank you both so much for coming on and wishing you both. Good luck as this investigation progresses. All right. Thank you for having us. Thank you. All right, everybody, that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.