SERIALously - 104: Texas Missing Pregnant Teen and Boyfriend Found Dead - Capital Murder Investigation Underway

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

18-year-old Savanah Soto, a pregnant woman from Leon Valley, Texas, disappeared one day before she was scheduled to be induced. She was reported missing by her family on December 23rd, and was last seen on December 22. Her family said she is a week past her due date and police have confirmed that she completely missed her appointment. Savanah was last seen at her apartment complex. And in a sick and twisted detail, according to her family, nobody has been able to contact her boyfriend, Matthew, since Savanah disappeared. Days later, a shocking discovery was made, and a capital murder investigation is now underway. Start the New Year off feeling your best with a good night’s sleep. Click  https://shopbeam.com/annieelise to shop my exclusive discount and get up to 40% off Beam’s clinically tested nighttime blend, Dream. Discount auto applied at checkout.  George Smith Cruise Podcast: https://pod.fo/e/203b5f  Ruby Franke Admits To DISTURBING Abuse & Torture Ft. Special Guest Hidden True Crime https://pod.fo/e/20d591  Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serialouslypod/   Shop the Merch: www.shop10tolife.com  Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise   All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_   SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/   About Me: https://annieelise.com/   For Business Inquiries: [e-mail]  Sources/Audio Credits: KENS5 NewsNation CBS Leon Valley Police Department KSAT Law & Crime 

Hey true crime besties, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to this week's True Crime Roundup, Headline Highlights, whatever you want to call it. But basically what we are doing today is talking about everything going on in the true crime world. And by the way, hi, it's me, Annie Elise, and this is Serialistly. If you are brand new and have never listened to this podcast before, I hope you all had a great holiday week and weekend, getting ready for the new year. There are just, god guys, I don't even know. There are so many fucking scumbags in the world. It really blows my mind. Every time I feel like it's going to be a quiet week, and I know I've said this before, it ends up surprising me.

Today we had Jodi Hildebrandt's hearing, which, God, what a shitstorm that is. So we're going to talk about that. I mean, we actually have way more to talk about than I would like, especially given the time of year. But like I said, it just illustrates how many dirtbags are really out there. So let's jump right into it. Before we do, please take a quick second, whatever podcast app you are listening to this on, take a quick second, make sure you're following the podcast so that you get notified when we drop new episodes. At the end

of this, if you dig it, if you're into it, if you appreciate the coverage, please take an extra 30 seconds to rate the podcast. So let's start with this case that is a true cruise ship nightmare. A 41-year-old man from Baltimore was traveling on the Vision of the Seas Royal Caribbean cruise ship when he fell overboard on Saturday, December 23rd. The ship was about 127 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina when the incident happened. The U.S. Coast Guard's air crew searched more than 1,600 square miles over the span of about eight days, but unfortunately, the man was never found, and the search was called off on Christmas Eve. A spokesperson for Royal Caribbean said, and I quote,

the ship and crew immediately reported the incident to local authorities and launched a search and rescue mission. Out of privacy for the guest and their family, we have no additional details to share. Now, obviously, we don't know what happened, right? But when I saw this, it totally reminded me of the George Smith case that we just covered recently on the podcast, which I will link in the show notes below, because it's another Royal Caribbean cruise ship. Now, I'm not saying all overboard incidents are isolated to this one cruise line. I'm not crazy, guys. I'm not a conspiracy theorist. However, this has happened on many different cruise lines, and I can't imagine how awful this man's family must be feeling in this moment.

To be on a cruise for Christmas and then to have that happen two days before the holiday, it's just unimaginable and absolutely heartbreaking. I also want to talk about this case where killers were caught eight years later. So let me rewind a little bit. In 2015, four members of the same extended family were murdered inside their home in Pendleton, South Carolina on Halloween night. Amy, the daughter of one of the victims who discovered the scene and called 911, appeared all over local news at the time, giving very emotional interviews about the incident. Each victim had been stabbed to death and then they were shot after they were dead, and the crime scene was absolutely gruesome as you can imagine. Amy said that she found the bodies

after opening the back door of the home, saying, I don't understand why any of it has happened, and I just keep thinking it's a dream that I'm going to wake up from. Whoever did this, I don't see how you can live with yourself. Well, turn of events, 180, spoiler alert, because Amy and her husband have now been charged with killing her own mother, her stepfather, her grandmother, and her stepfather's mother back in 2015. Feeling like I should be waking up from a dream right now, and it's just not happening. So yeah, it's like a movie or something. Well, if it's like a movie, then Amy Velarde, who you just saw there, may be up for Best Supporting Actress,

alongside her husband Ross, also seen there, because now they're the ones who just got arrested and charged with all four murders. And guys, it gets even worse. Just days after the incident, Amy appeared on TV criticizing law enforcement for not keeping her in the loop about the investigation, which, seriously, you cannot make this up. There again, they've got a job to do, but sometimes as family members, we want answers. And we just want to know what's going on. Well, better late than never, because eight years later, Amy probably now has a pretty firm grasp on the status of the investigation.

In fact, at one point in that interview, the local reporter with News Nation's affiliate WSPA in South Carolina asked Amy a question that in retrospect, like almost seems like out of a Hitchcock film. like almost seems like out of a Hitchcock film. If you were talking directly to the person, do you want to look in the camera and just say exactly what you would say to that person? I can't say that on TV. Well, you've got to give her some points for honesty. Now, the fact that the reporter asked her to look at the camera, speak to the killer, and make a statement is absolutely classic. I will never understand why people who are involved in a crime will go on TV to try to make themselves out

to be the victim, but PSA to all criminals, please keep doing it because it makes law enforcement's job a hell of a lot easier. And I mean, I guess she was kind of right if she was mad at law enforcement for not keeping her in the loop about the investigation because we know that perpetrators love to insert themselves in the investigation so she was probably pissed that she didn't know all the details and she didn't know that they were probably on to her so with that with crazy batshit crazy people i guess that's kind of a good it dovetails into the tender love triangle murder that i wanted to talk with you guys about next. So Damon Benson, a 31-year-old from Rancho Cordova, California, was recently sentenced to 71 years in prison following his conviction back in September.

His conviction was for torturing a 29-year-old woman that he met on Tinder so that he could find out where her other lover lived and murder him under the cover of darkness. Yes, you heard that right. Now, this woman's identity has not been released, but I know it sounds fucking crazy, so let's unpack this a little bit. During the summer of 2021, Damon carved a swastika while torturing the woman, who was Jewish, while she was tied to his ceiling with a rope and held against her will all at his apartment, and he did this to, and I quote, ultimately get the address to murder her other lover. Now, the other lover was a man named Cameron Gabriel. The woman and Gabriel also met on Tinder, and then out of jealousy, Damon barged into Cameron's house and shot him to death.

After this, Damon claimed that he only killed Cameron in self-defense, but ultimately, the investigation proved otherwise, since there was security footage that showed Damon running into Cameron's house, and then seconds later, you could hear gunfire, and then Damon ran out of the house screaming that's right motherfucker i mean honestly like what the fuck right so let's move on to the next case because as if your jaw isn't on the floor already let's talk about the moron rapist who was caught by a ring doorbell and alexa 50-year-old man named Robert Wagner from Indiana was arrested this week after he was allegedly caught on camera sexually assaulting a woman inside of her own home, even going so far as to tell the victim's Alexa to turn off the lights during the attack.

Can you imagine? Like, this guy is in the middle of a rape and he's all, Alexa, turn off the lights. Like, honestly, what is happening in the world today? Now, according to the probable cause affidavit, Indiana Metro Police responded to a 911 call on Friday, October 13th. The caller said that she had been raped. The woman's identity has not been released for obvious reasons right now, but she said that she invited Robert over to her house two days earlier on the 11th so that they could get to know each other.

The woman said that when Robert came over to her house, he tried to kiss her, but she turned him down. Later in the night, he allegedly asked the victim to touch his genitals, and again she refused. After that, the woman said that she invited Robert to spend the night with the understanding that they would both keep their clothes on and they would not have sex. The woman said that Robert continued to badger her about having sex and then finally grabbed her by the throat, threw her on the couch, and forcibly removed her clothing. Then he began to rape her as she repeatedly told him to stop, and this was somehow caught on ring surveillance footage. The footage allegedly showed Robert throwing the woman onto her living room couch, removing her pants as she

repeatedly yelled no, and then him telling the woman's Alexa to turn the living room lights out. And at the end, Robert was caught on that ring doorbell again, apologizing as he was walking out the front door, and the woman was of course yelling and cussing him out for attacking her. So this is where the story gets weird. Now apparently the woman told two mutual friends of hers and Robert about what had happened and one of the friends told the woman that Robert felt really bad about what happened and was going to turn himself in which okay yeah right but ultimately that obviously didn't happen because the woman called the police, and rightfully so, and thank god she

didn't wait on that asshole to turn himself in, which I doubt he would have ever done, and seriously, the guy who raped her now has some sort of moral conscience and is going to turn himself in? I mean, give me a motherfucking break. That is the most ridiculous thing i've ever heard which honestly speaking of ridiculous i want to talk about becky hill for a second because good god guys like the alex murdoch case it is like the case that just will not stop giving becky hill the clerk of court accused of jury tampering in the Alex Murdoch double murder trial, seems to be playing whack-a-mole with bad publicity lately as she's now facing plagiarism allegations for stealing from a draft of a BBC news article for her book. The plagiarism accusations

from Neil Gordon, a Georgia journalist who, get this, co-authored Becky's book that played a role in all of the jury tampering accusations in the first place. I mean, you know it's bad when your co-author is doing a cut and run. It makes absolutely no sense, and it really just shows how absolutely batshit crazy this woman must be. So, according to Neil's press conference, and, or I'm sorry, according to Neal's press release on December 26th, Neal says that he discovered the plagiarism while reviewing thousands of Becky's emails that were released through the Freedom of Information Act, and that's when he discovered an email exchange between Becky and a BBC reporter,

where the reporter shared a passage from an upcoming article about the Murdoch trial with her. Now, when he compared the email from the BBC reporter with a 12-page portion of the preface to the book, which Becky claimed to have written herself, he realized that she plagiarized the reporter's words. In the news release, Neal said, When I confronted Becky about this, she admitted she plagiarized the passage due to the deadline Neil said, amount to everything I do. I can't be associated with anything like plagiarism and will no longer partner with Becky Hill on any projects. I'd like to apologize to our readers and publicly to BBC and the reporter. Neil notified the BBC reporter about Becky's actions and said that he was told the BBC's attorneys are investigating, but for now, all book sales have been paused. And I mean, this is absolutely

ridiculous. All of the jury tampering allegations aside, this woman should be ashamed of herself for thinking that she could actually steal 12 pages of somebody else's work and include it as the preface of her own memoir and then get away with it. I mean, give me an effing break. Now, there is still a retrial hearing for Alex Murdoch in the double murder trial for the jury tampering allegations. The ethics complaint accuses Becky of abusing her office for personal gain, especially regarding her actions concerning the book that she published about the trial, which honestly doesn't seem that far-fetched now that this has come out but i don't know what do you guys think i mean if she is okay with crossing one boundary is it really that

unbelievable that she's crossed other boundaries in the past or did alex murdoch just happen to get lucky now that this is now bringing up everything that becky has done under this ethical microscope because that totally also seems possible. But to me, this new twist completely destroys her credibility, and her lawyer released a statement that she feels remorse and only did what she did because she was under pressure to meet those deadlines, but this was her own book, so what deadline was there that she wasn't imposing on herself? The deadline of getting on the story while it's hot? I don't know. Make it make sense. Speaking of make it make sense, let's talk about Jodi Hildebrandt, the absolute nightmare from the eight passengers case. So we already know that Ruby pled guilty and made a plea deal. So Jodi had her hearing this

week and she basically had all of the exact same charges that Ruby pled guilty to, which are absolutely torturous and like entailed making them stand out in the heat, starving them, punishing them when they wanted water, all of these things against a 12-year-old boy and a nine-year-old girl, which if you haven't fully caught up on that, go back to my previous episode and you'll get fully caught up. But anyways, today was Jodi's hearing and she basically accepted guilt for those same things, but also an additional detail was disclosed that they made the nine-year-old girl jump into cactus repeatedly. What kind of awful horrific abuse on these two kids but they also tried to indoctrinate them to say that they were the evil ones that this was all done out of acts of love it is just so beyond sick

so beyond twisted i honestly hope that they get the absolute maximum sentence because it really really is sick and so disturbing so we are going to do a deep dive on everything Jodi and Ruby very soon, so stay tuned for that. But I want to also talk to you guys about the missing teenager out of Texas, because so many of you guys have been asking me about that, and I promised that I would give you that information. So let me jump into that for you right now. Everything starts with a good night of sleep, but let's be real. Getting a good night of sleep is really hard

during the holidays because you've got late nights, parties, indulging in unhealthy foods or habits, crazy schedules, some extra alcohol consumption, guilty as charged. But New Year's is right around the corner and it's also the perfect time to start implementing new healthy routines. And honestly, the best way to start doing so is with a deep sleep that leaves you feeling energized and ready to take on the day with zero grogginess. Now, I've already been doing this for about a year, but I'm going into another new year drinking my Beam Dream Sleep Tea. I've talked to you guys about it before, but if you have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, getting a good sleep, you need to try Dream. And Dream is a very luxurious drink blend that's filled with the highest quality sleep-promoting ingredients. It's clinically shown to improve your sleep. It helps me fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and wake up

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Don't miss out on this limited time offer. The discount is auto-applied at checkout, so you'd have no code necessary. Guys, check it out. Get your good sleep on. So many of you have tried it already and have told me how much you love it, so if you haven't tried it, now is the time. 18-year-old Savannah Soto, a pregnant woman from Leon Valley, Texas, disappeared one day before she was scheduled to be induced. She was reported missing by her family on December 23rd, and she was last seen on December 22nd. Her family said that she is a week past her due date, and police have confirmed that she completely missed her appointment. On Christmas, Leon Valley Police Department issued a clear alert,

which is sent out for missing, kidnapped, or abducted adults who are in need of immediate attention. The alert said that she is 5'1", has brown hair, brown eyes, and might be in a gray 2013 Kia Optima with temporary Texas tags. So not a whole lot is known about Savannah's background. We know that she was born on August 22, 2005 to her mother, Gloria, and she grew up in the San Antonio area with her mother and brothers. So just a little over a year ago, Savannah's younger brother was brutally shot and killed. He was only 15 years old and he would have celebrated his 17th birthday this past December 8th. So while she was in school, she met a man named Matthew Guerrera, and their relationship turned from just friends into something more, even though

she was just 15 years old at the time, and Matthew was four years older than her. Savannah and Matthew's relationship was also on and off, but at some point they moved in together, and after that Savannah found out that she was pregnant with a baby boy. So right now, there are a lot of rumors and controversy surrounding her and Matthew's relationship, because Matthew has an ongoing and very colorful past with law enforcement, dating all the way back to 2021. See, he was arrested in March of 2021 and January 2022 for weapons charges. However, things took a turn during Christmas of 2022. On Christmas Day, Matthew was arrested for assault causing bodily injury, and the description under the arrest details

says married. Now, when I looked up what exactly that description meant, apparently in Texas, when any type of domestic violence incident occurs, that's how it's detailed, but it includes a spouse, partner, or someone living in the home. So he was arrested again just a few months ago on August 1st, when he was arrested for reckless driving and a weapons charge and evading arrest. At the time of Savannah's disappearance, he was out on bond. Savannah was last seen at her apartment complex, and in a sick and twisted detail, according to her family, nobody had been able to contact Matthew since Savannah disappeared. Police tried to enter Savannah's apartment on Christmas Day,

but were unsuccessful. Her family and friends organized a search of the area on Christmas as well, but with no luck. Savannah's grandmother said that she was excited to welcome her baby and had a nursery decorated and also a name picked out. She also said that the family just wants answers and to have Savannah safely returned, saying, it's not normal. Something's not adding a nursery decorated and also a name picked out. She also said that the family just wants answers and to have Savannah safely returned, saying, it's not normal. Something's not adding up here. I want answers. We all want answers. She's a beautiful girl. She'll help anyone, and I want someone to help us. So Savannah's sister-in-law posted on Facebook, I won't allow you to be one of those statistics of what happens when you have an abusive boyfriend. I won't allow this to be one of those statistics of what happens when you have an abusive boyfriend. I won't allow this

to be your story. This isn't where it ends. Your baby is supposed to be your beginning mama, your realization to leave for the safety of you and your baby boy. Come home, Vanna. Just find your way home. Now, Facebook groups discussing Savannah's whereabouts as well as her family's own personal pages have been flooded with accusations that Matthew had been abusing Savannah physically and emotionally for quite some time. And since we know what he did to her last Christmas allegedly, I would guess that that event was not the first time that he had gotten violent with her before. So the details of what exactly happened are unclear and there has been a lot of speculation from people in Facebook discussion groups,

even some claiming to have been Matthew and Savannah's apartment neighbors at the time. Now, let me just be honest. I cannot verify the accuracy of this whatsoever, so take this with a grain of salt, please. Unfortunately, I was their neighbor last year. grain of salt, please. Unfortunately, I was their neighbor last year. This time last year, I witnessed him beating her and kicked her down the stairs while she was unconscious. He kicked her body and face. I tried saving her by calling 911. An EMS was called because she needed stitches and needed to be further evaluated. Charges were pressed against him. She left for a while but returned, and it's sad to see that a year later, she is back with him and is pregnant and now missing. I believe he has done something bad to her.

Her family tried keeping her from him. She was a minor at the time when this happened. He argued and beat her almost every day, and I tried helping her, but you can only do so much. The comment even claimed that the alleged neighbor had testified against him in court, which, if true, would give some context to the December 2022 arrest. So court records show that Matthew was allowed to have contact with Savannah as long as it wasn't harmful, and he apparently was enrolled in a battering intervention and protection program, though he never verified his enrollment with a receipt or provided an agency location. So Matthew's mother has also spoken out on Facebook, and she said,

If anyone knows my son Matthew Guerrera, he and his pregnant girlfriend are missing. I know my son, and he wouldn't do anything to hurt her. She is due to have her baby and her things were left behind that she packed for the hospital, including her purse. The neighbor said that they heard Savannah screaming for help and the next morning,

they saw them get into a Cadillac. My son's phone says that the caller is unavailable and their car is not at their apartment. As a mother, I know my son and his girlfriend were taken against their will because my son does what he does for money. He is not an abusive boyfriend. It's envy and those who hate on others who don't need anyone. That has something to do with my son and his girlfriend missing. Please help. If anyone knows anything, let me and his brothers know. Thank you. His mother claimed that Matthew wouldn't have

done anything to hurt Savannah, but we know from literal arrests that that might not be true. So a woman named Joni Sophia, who is apparently Savannah's sister-in-law, shared the post calling out Matthew's mom, claiming that Matthew had even put his hands on Savannah while she was pregnant, saying, Your son beat the fuck out of my little sister-in-law and always put hands on her while she was pregnant. We would see marks all over her. When she came home with her face broken and her eye shut. She wouldn't come around. Your son brought whatever happened to her and to our nephew onto them.

Some posts in the Find Savannah Soto discussion group even claimed that rumors are spreading that on the night that Savannah first went missing, that she was running down their street and screaming for help and asking people to use their phones. But Matthew apparently dragged her back to their apartment and nobody ever called for help or even thought of it as odd because apparently it happened all the time. Again, this was just a comment on a post in a discussion group, Again, this was just a comment on a post in a discussion group, so this information has to be taken with a grain of salt and has not been confirmed or verified in any way other than hearsay and word of mouth. So after days of searching endlessly for Savannah,

a shocking discovery was made because on December 26, the day after Christmas, just a couple days ago, Savannah was finally found, and unfortunately, she was deceased. Now, the crazy part is it wasn't only Savannah was finally found and unfortunately she was deceased. Now the crazy part is it wasn't only Savannah that was found. Two bodies were found outside of an apartment complex inside of that 2013 Kia Optima that Savannah was believed to have been in when the missing persons report went out. The bodies were found inside the car and were believed to have been there deceased for about three to four days. The car was found in a different apartment complex than where they lived. During the press conference, the police chief said that the positive identification is still needed to 100%

verify the identities. However, Savannah and Matt's family have confirmed it was them. Now, a lot of people thought that maybe this was a murder-suicide situation. However, during the press conference, things got even weirder in this case. The chief said that the crime scene was perplexing and complex, but didn't specify or go into any further detail than that. When asked if there were weapons found in the car, he also did not comment. he also did not comment. So what I'm about to tell you, excuse me, what I'm about to tell you is a is preliminary information and could change, quite possibly will change as detectives get further into the investigation. And what we're looking at right now, I think everybody knows the background on this, so I won't go into it. But what we're looking at right now is a very, very perplexing crime scene. And detectives right now are looking at this as a possible murder,

but we don't know for sure. So again, because of the complexity, the complex crime scene, we can't say for sure what we have. More comments flooded Facebook claiming that Matthew's body was found in the front seat of the car and Savannah's body was found in the back and that both bodies had been tied up. But this again is not confirmed or verified in any way and could just be rumors that are spreading like wildfire. Now, another disclaimer. This information has also not been verified, but a different woman who claimed to be Matthew's cousin went live on Instagram

and said that Matthew was actually the one found in the backseat of the car, while Savannah's body was found up front with the car seat on top of her. According to her, Matthew's body was actually laid out in the back seat with his pants pulled down. Now, this is a total 360 from what comments were originally saying, and people even commented on her live saying that they thought that he was the one in the front seat, but she kept saying that that information was not correct. Again, we won't know more until the investigators want us to know more, and right now, none of this information can be verified and might turn out to be false.

But as you can imagine, social media is already going absolutely crazy over this case, to say the least. And it's really hard to tell what the truth is and what isn't. So could this have possibly been some kind of murder-suicide, or was this something way, way, way more terrifying? of murder-suicide, or was this something way, way, way more terrifying? Matthew's brother claimed that he, quote-unquote, had enemies, and Matthew's own mother even alluded to Matthew being involved in some sort of sketchy, something sketchy in her Facebook post about the two of them. So, could he have had some scary enemies that wanted to take him and his loved ones out right before the birth of their son? Was this retaliation? What could this have been? I have no doubt that we will be finding out more information in the near future,

especially on whether their deaths were from some kind of outside source, or if it was a tragic case of domestic violence that ended in death. Hey everybody, okay so this edit is coming in after recording, but new details just came out that Savannah was found in the front seat and Matthew was in the back seat, and they were both shot behind the right ear. Police have also announced that an unborn child was pronounced dead at the scene, so I'm not sure if that means her body expelled the baby or not because that was the direct quote that they gave. Police are now treating this as a capital murder case, and capital murder is murder during the commission of another felony. Now, what that felony could be, we don't know. Possibly robbery, possible kidnapping, etc.

Savannah's sister-in-law discovered the car after being tipped off by someone through Facebook, and she was able to open the car door. She said that she saw a lot of blood and didn't want to believe that Savannah was dead. Now right now official causes of deaths for Savannah Matthew and the baby have not been determined. Police have also not released if a weapon was found in the car. There are also people that believe that the murder may have been retaliation from a brawl that broke out during the trial of one of the people that was responsible for killing Savannah's brother back in October. So I will definitely

be keeping you posted on that case. Maybe we'll even do a deep dive, but that's all we know for now. Again, still a lot of unverified information. So thank you again for tuning in to this week's Headline Highlights recap recap i hope you found this informative don't forget follow the podcast if you're not already and i will see you back here again on monday for a deep dive of a brand new true crime case all right guys thanks so much and i will talk with you soon bye Thank you.