The Deck - Angelica Sandoval (3 of Hearts, Colorado)

Episode Date: May 20, 2026

When police arrived at the scene of Angelica Sandoval’s disappearance on February 24th, 2011, what they came across seemed eerily frozen in time: her 1995, four-door, green Oldsmobile sedan was parked on 13th Street, in front of her two-bedroom duplex. Her keys were still in the driver’s side lock, but the back driver’s side door of the car was hanging open, revealing a basket of laundry and her purse still inside the car. The eeriness of that scene - the way that Angelica had seemingly just been plucked away in the middle of such a routine task -  left a heaviness that has hung over Alamosa, CO, since that wintry night and left a Detective to work through a maze of potential suspects, leads, small-town gossip, and unanswered questions.  If you know anything that could help detectives, call the Alamosa Police Department at 719-589-2548 and ask for the Investigations Division. Or if you’d like to remain anonymous, you can contact Crimestoppers at 719-589-4111.    View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/angelica-sandoval Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media. Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuck Twitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuck Facebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllc To support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers.  Instagram: @ashleyflowers TikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkie Twitter: @Ash_Flowers Facebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Our card this week is Angelica Sandoval, the three of hearts from Colorado. When police arrived at the scene of Angelica Sandoval's disappearance on February 24, 2011, what they came across seemed eerily frozen in time. Her 1995, four-door green Oldsmobile sedan was parked in front of her two-bedroom duplex. Her keys were still in the driver-side lock, but the back driver-side door of the car was hanging open, revealing a basket of long. and her purse still inside the car. The eerieness of that scene,

the way that Angelica had seemingly just been plucked away in the middle of such a routine task, it left a heaviness that is hung over Alamosa, Colorado, since that 27-degree night. I grew up in Alamosa, Colorado, born and raised here. It's a case that if you grew up here, you kind of heard about, you knew about, you were always aware of Angelica Sandoval's case.

That's Captain Brandon Birch. He clearly knew about Angelica's case when he joined the Alamosa Police Department in 2017. But he had no idea then that almost 10 years later, it would be his job to solve this 15-year-old cold case. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. Three years after joining the Alamosa Police, Department. A black binder in the investigations unit caught the attention of now Captain

Brandon Birch. I was a detective in 2020 around that time frame. And as the years progressed, I had a case file that was sitting inside of my detective cubicle that was sitting in there for years. And I never really looked at it. And one day, I remember I just opened my dresser drawer and I start looking at it and I said, hey, Cap, what is this? Oh, that's on Helica Sandoval's case file. oh, that's a cold case, a missing person case. And of course, it registers with me because I grew up here, right? And I start kind of just looking at the case and the way the file was set up, just the way it was there.

And it just, it bothered me for years and bothered me for years that it was just sitting there. I understood that there were no leads coming in at the time. That was kind of what I was told, hey, you know, if there's leads coming in, we'll follow up on them. If there's leads coming in, we'll follow up on them. And we're a busy agency, but I don't think we should make the excuse that we're so busy that we can't show some type of due diligence to look at these cases. By January of 2006, Birch was the one overseeing the agency's investigations division. And now that he was calling the shot, he made it a priority for the department to take a hard look at the case of Angelica Sandoval. It meant going back through 15 years of notes, evidence, and documents that had been,

passed through several hands. I put aside about a week and a half of just uninterrupted time between me and my detectives, the district attorney's office, the 12th Judicial District Attorney's Office investigators, where we just went into a empty room, completely empty whiteboards, brought Angelica's entire case file, everything about Angelica, including her evidence, into this room, and just rehashed the entire case from start to finish. The first thing they found were gaps.

Missing notes, incomplete records, leads, and evidence that were never fully followed up on or reviewed as the file passed from one investigator to another over the years. But there were clear records about how the investigation started. Onheleka's grandfather, Ernest, had been the one to report her missing to the Alamosa Police Department on February 24, 2011. Ernest told the responding officer that he had been at Angelica's home watching her one-year-old daughter while Angelica was at a nearby laundromat. He said that when she returned home, she had parked on the street and brought some laundry inside. And then she went back for another load, but then she just never returned. Now, her grandfather knew that something wasn't right and he called the police.

Because nothing about the scene that wintery night made him believe she had just walked away. I mean, forget how her car was left open and all her things left behind. The one thing he knew she would never leave behind was her daughter. Now, police held just a beat. Maybe she forgot something or just went to a neighbor's. But when there was still no sign of Angelica by the afternoon, police returned and began a coordinated search of the area. From what he's learned about on Helica through interviews and her case file,

Captain Birch doesn't think she would have abandoned her daughter either. And he doesn't think that she would have gone with someone willingly. Our reporter spoke with six of Angelica's friends and family members. And a picture emerged of someone who was petite in size, but not in spirit. She was 4.11 and 105 pounds with dark hair, brown eyes, and distinctive tattoos. Sad girl across her knuckles. The name of her daughter on her. her shoulder and paw prints along her left rib cage. By all accounts, Anheleka was the kind of

person who could handle herself, the kind of person who wouldn't go quietly. Just from what I've been able to figure out throughout the case file, Enhelica was kind of a spunky in-your-face girl. She's a tough, tough, her family's tough, she's tough, and street-smart is the best term I could use, right? She's a street smart girl. And yet, as police canvassed the neighborhood around the duplex, working their way down 13th Street and nearby roads, interviewing more than a dozen people, no one in the area reported anything unusual that night,

not even her grandfather who told police that he'd been right inside the house when on Helica disappeared. To Captain Birch, part of that isn't weird, the not seeing anything parts. So assuming that the South Side was set up the way it was when I was growing up here, there wouldn't have been all these street lights. This is going to be a really dark street, especially at, you know, this is February. So it's the middle of winter for us.

I remember being on night shift patrol driving down here and it's still dark. You could barely see the front doors of these properties. It's the not hearing anything part that he finds hard to believe. Because the properties out there on 13th Street sit very close. close to one another. If Angelica would have screamed or yelled or done anything like that, which again, from what I see of her and what I think she is as an individual, and I may be completely wrong, but I could see her screaming, kicking, fighting to get back inside the house in there where her baby's at.

This isn't that far of a distance to hear that type of commotion by any means. but for any of these, even the ones across the street. I mean, we're still looking at 50 yards, if that, just to the one straight across the street. In 2011, detectives spent the first few days following on Helica's disappearance at this location, her home and the surrounding area. They interviewed her neighbors,

they issued a search warrant for the duplex, the yard, and an alley next to the house. Her name was entered into the Colorado and National Crime Information Centers, reports show that her car was towed to the police station and processed for evidence. But despite records that these searches were performed, Captain Birch said there weren't any lab reports or similar items in the case file he inherited that show, if anything, like DNA, hair, fibers, or prints were processed, much less what the results were. What he does have to work with are the phone records that police pulled from her cell, which Angelica had left behind in the house after bringing in that first load of laundry.

They did an emergency pull of the records, which only gave them the last 48 hours of activity, showing date and timestamped messages, along with cell tower locations. It narrowed down when her communications stopped and helped investigators identify who she'd been in contact with, which gave them an idea of whom to interview. And all those interviews led to a big reveal. This wasn't the first investigation that On Helica was at the center of. On November 19, 2010, three months before Angelica Sandoval disappeared, she called 911 to report a terrifying incident that had happened while she was sleeping in her bed.

It was a short time after midnight. She told police that she had been woken up by a man holding a gun to her back and pressing her face into a pillow. He had proceeded to duct tape another pillow around her head before taking $200 from her wallet and threatening to assault her in front of her baby who was sleeping nearby. Before leaving, he warned her not to move for five minutes or he would return and kill her. Then he shouted out on his way out the door, This is East Side Gang. Anheleca had briefly seen her attacker through a gap in the pillows. He was about 5'5 with neck tattoos, but more than that, she'd recognized his voice. She said it belonged to a man who went by demon that she had met through a boyfriend.

She had even dropped him off once at his mother-in-law's home and remembered the name of his wife. So all of these details had quickly led investigators to a 29-year-old local man named Jose Luis Mraz. And while Maraz had tattoos associated with Serenios 13, a gang tied to the Mexican mafia, it's unclear which East Side gang was being referenced during the robbery, because he had never been charged or convicted with any crime related to gang activity. Now, Angelica later identified Maras in a photo lineup. He was then charged with nine counts related to the home invasion, including burglary, robbery, first-degree kidnapping,

and child abuse for endangering her daughter. And Angelica was set to testify against him in court, and that hearing was set for a week after she went missing. So the case direction 100%. From the start, it was, from the moment it was taken until, you know, it started going cold later on, several years later, was 100% directed towards Jose Maras. The home invasion, everything was there for the motive.

What wasn't there, though, was opportunity. During this time frame, though, he was incarcerated. He was in a facility or in a jail. I think it was in New Mexico during this time when she went missing. On February 3rd, 2011, 20 days before on Helica's disappearance, Maraz was arrested and jailed in Española, New Mexico, on multiple warrants for other crimes, including second-degree assault. It meant that he couldn't physically have been anywhere near Aheleca on the night that she went missing.

But police couldn't discount that he may have orchestrated a hit from behind bars. All of his records and everything as far as Moraz goes was reviewed by the FBI. He did a lot of his stuff, his communication from the jail, from via phone calls, letters were all in Spanish. So they had to get individuals to reference and go through all of that fine tooth and comment and see what type of communication there was about Angelica specifically. The answer was none of it. They even reviewed his prison visitor logs, which showed no visits from known criminal associates.

There is no denying, though, that on Helica going missing played in his favor. Without her to testify, the home invasion charges were ultimately dropped. Moraz would eventually serve 18 months at prison for an unrelated assault charge, but they never had anything connecting him to Angelica's disappearance. And therefore, he has never been charged in relation to this case. And we were unable to reach him for comment through phone or email. While Jose Miraz seems like the best first person to look at, he was far from the only one.

Beginning, as they often do with those closest to Angelica, those who had last spoken to her, last seen her, And in unraveling her last movement that night, the narrative itself began unraveling. Because it turns out that Ernest wasn't the last one to see on Helica before she went out to her car. He hadn't even been at her house at the time. When caught in the lie, he swore that the story he originally told police was true. He had just put himself in place of the person who was really there. that night.

Angelica's 19-year-old brother, Alejandro. Angelica was the oldest of six siblings and the heart of her large, close-knit, multi-generational family. Relatives describe her as nurturing, a caretaker, someone who often stepped into a maternal role for her younger brothers and sisters. It wasn't unusual for one of them to be staying with Angelica and her daughter at their home. One family member told us that Angelica had been afraid.

to be at her house alone after the home invasion. So she had actually begged Alejandro to come down from Colorado Springs to stay with her. And he did. So why have a family member lie about this? Well, the answer isn't all that sinister. Because Alejandro had a warrant out for bond violations from a 2009 arrest that included second-degree burglary. Ernest told police that he had made the call so that his grandson wouldn't have to face the police and risk getting arrested.

Interestingly, though, there was one more part of the story that police poked a hole in. No one, not Ernest, not Alejandro, was babysitting while she was at the laundromat. Angelica had her baby with her the whole time at Southside Suds, just a few blocks away from the house. I learned that there was two witnesses, two female parties that were doing laundry there as well. there were two college girls from Adam State College. And they can remember while they were inside the laundromat that Angelica has just seemed kind of frazzled and worked up. And one of them actually tells me about hearing Angelica on the cell phone

talking to somebody, referencing, yes, I know, I know I got to get them out of my house. I'm working on it. I don't know if she's talking about her house. I don't know if she's talking about grandparents' house. I don't know exactly which house she's talking about. I know at times, at any given time, she had, you know, her brothers living with her. She had acquaintances sometimes stay at the house. But it's a little unclear on who exactly she was talking about.

What we do know now is that Alejandro was at home when Angelica arrived around 9.30 p.m. And her phone records stop after this time. And this is what investigators have pieced together about the events that, followed when Angelica arrived home shortly after this. He walks in, she takes a load of laundry, she takes her cell phone, and she takes her baby girl inside, and drops them off inside the residence with her brother, Alejandro. From there, she then goes back outside to get more stuff out of her vehicle, and 15 minutes or so go by, and then that's when Alejandro realizes that she has to come back into the house,

goes outside, and then starts looking for her. Alejandro had used Angelica's cell phone to call their mother Michelle, a story she later mentioned in a television interview. She recalled rushing to the duplex and looking for her daughter in a panic, even calming through outside dumpsters and a nearby ditch. Relatives soon came over, including Ernest, who eventually made that call to police. Captain Birch believes Alejandro was interviewed by law enforcement. But there is no transcript or detailed record. of that interview. And in 2026, at the time of our reporting, he is currently incarcerated after being convicted in a 2022 kidnapping case. Our reporter wrote to him through the Department

of Corrections hoping to speak with him and learn more about the night of Angelica's disappearance. But as of this recording, we have not received a response. Alejandro was just one part of a much bigger picture investigators were trying to sort through. Police looked into Angelica's ex-boyfriend, her baby's father, as well as a different man that she was dating at the time. But both were in prison during this period. And more than that, Captain Birch says that nothing of substance tied either of them to her disappearance. They were also sorting through endless amounts of information coming in. Alamosa is a town of roughly 15,000 people living together in the middle of an 8,000 square mile Alpine Valley.

It's a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone, and generations of families grow up with generations of other families. In a place like this, news travels fast, and everyone seemed to have something to say or share about Anheleka's story. Some people said that they saw her, alive and well. Others claim to have information about where her body could be, places around Alamosa and far beyond. One of the biggest problems that I've always noticed is that we have a mountain range within a 15 to 20 minute drive from all of us.

I can go in any which direction in here and find some type of mountain range. And it gives you an eerie feeling for that because there's accessibility to take somebody and get rid of somebody. That's the scariest part. While police worked on the case, Anheleka's loved ones were involved in their own, wireless searches for her. In the months that followed on Helica's disappearance, it wasn't just police conducting searches. Unheleka's mom, Michelle Sandoval, became her daughter's most relentless advocate, pouring everything she had into the search for her daughter, along with help from Angelica's father, Robert Roybal. But we weren't able to speak with either of them about their

experiences because Robert died in 2012. And Michelle passed away in 2022, before. or she could get answers about what happened to her daughter. But our reporter did speak with several of Angelica's relatives and friends at her grandparents' home in Alamosa. They spent the day sharing photos and stories and recounting the grueling search and devastating aftermath of Angelica's disappearance. Her uncle Fares was there, and he told us about Michelle's dogged determination to find out what happened to her eldest child.

She went throughout the valley, you know, asking people, talking to different people, friends, strangers off the street, you know, taking her picture everywhere to anybody, really, for months on end. I think she had, you know, her certain individual people that she wanted investigated, you know, and I believe she turned all those names into the Elmolson Police Department. I mean, I have a three-ring folder full of stuff and follow-up that she did on her own. And what I mean by that, she was literally keeping newspaper clipping. She was doing articles, and then she would even bring in pictures of Angelica, her friends, her associates, and write notes down at what she knew about these individuals.

For Captain Birch, Michelle's position outside of law enforcement gave her an edge. I think she was asking those hard questions, and she was able to connect and ask the questions to people that wouldn't want to talk to law enforcement. So that's where the difference is. You know, if you wear a badge and you try to ask the same questions that Michelle was asking at the time, you may not get the same response. Michelle wasn't alone in this journey. She was joined by friends, family, and anyone who was willing to look for on Helica. At the beginning, my sister and I, we got in contact with some bounty hunters out of Colorado Springs in the fountain area.

And they came down and helped us, you know, for several weeks, look into it. And, you know, I'm not too, I can't remember exactly what came out of that, but they did get some leads and they turned them over to the police department. With along what the notes of my sister had. Every day we went searching early to late, late in the evenings. I even, you know, borrowed snowmobiles and I went up to areas where it was high up. We had to actually write a snowmobile in. and I have cousins who run horseback that went around to desolate areas and searched for her that we can't get into with a normal vehicle or hiking.

Her family was still holding out hope that Angelica was alive when one chilling crime stoppers tip came in a couple of months into the investigation. The tip took them to the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, near a 30-foot waterfall, where deep in the snow, Someone had left a message. It said help, danger, call cops. And with those words was a note about Anheleka's love for her daughter. And an arrow was drawn beside the words pointing off into the landscape towards a place that her family feared she might have been held by abductors.

Her uncle told us that they hiked through two to three feet of snow searching every inch around there. Law enforcement followed up too. But when it was all said and done, there was nothing. No trace, no evidence, nothing to explain who even wrote that message or why. Now around this same time, another lead surface that led to another mountain range. Anheleka's mother Michelle received an anonymous call, and the voice on the other end delivered a chilling tip. If you want to find your daughter, go to Lamanga Pass, an area between the San Juan Mountains.

The caller warned that Onheleca might not be found until spring, and when she was, she would be in a green bag. Onelika's father, Robert, went there. He camped and searched until he physically couldn't anymore. But again, he found nothing, and it wasn't long after this that Robert passed away. Yeah, I think he hit him hard and, you know, and I think the alcohol kind of, you know, depression and alcohol took him. That first year, year and a half, the crime stoppers tips were coming in on a regular basis. And these were being followed up systematically based on how much credibility they had. There was tips that said that she was being human trafficked.

in Texas or Mexico, between the two of those, or between the border or in the subsequent area. There were tips that she was in New Mexico. I believe we even had tips out of, I don't know if it was Virginia or somewhere close to that, where somebody assumed that they saw her at a gas station. So, I mean, we got surveillance footage from gas stations, trying to see if this is her.

Those were all dead ends as well. 11 years later is when Birch and his team reopened the case, auditing files, reexamining evidence, and identifying gaps, while also taking steps to fill in the gaps that were left behind. And one of the things Birch noticed that was never done was a check of on Helica's social media. So they got search warrants for her communications and data there, but Birch says that it didn't reveal anything significant for the investigation. Detectives have also gone on to re-interview witnesses, trying to see if stories have changed or if time has emboldened anyone to be more candid.

A close friend who was with Angelica that day initially reported nothing unusual. But when Birch spoke with her again just this year, she identified one of her own relatives as someone who may have information. Investigators are now trying to locate that person for an interview. Captain Birch says that his team is currently tracking more than 10 persons of interest. including one man who has been at the center of this case from the beginning, Jose Luis Maraz. The man arrested for breaking into Angelica's home just a few months before she went missing.

As far as I'm concerned, he's not cleared as a suspect. If you'll remember, Maraz originally refused to speak about Angelica's disappearance with Alamosa police. But investigators would still like to hear Maraz's side of the story before he's ruled out. here we are 15 years later, maybe things have changed. Maybe he's got a different outlook, and maybe he is willing to provide that information. So just because it wasn't done then and, you know, he refused the interview then doesn't mean that may be the case now. There's another focus in the investigation now, rebuilding trust with Angelica's loved ones. Some over the past 15 years, communication broke down.

Now, investigators are working to repair those relationships and bringing them. back into the process to help find answers. Captain Birch says that reconnecting with Angelica's family has been a priority, including with her daughter, who is now 16 years old. She's just a sweet art, spent an image of her mom. I've got to make that face-to-face contact with her and just kind of puts into perspective what 15 years looks like, right? You know, she's a baby girl inside of her car seat, and here she is almost in womanhood, right?

She's gone all these years without answers. She's gone all these years with muddied rumors. And who knows what else have families had to deal with with the disappearance of Unhalika. When our team spent the day with Angelica's loved ones at her grandparents' home in Alamosa, it was clear how much her absence has shaped their lives. Her uncle, Fares, spoke about how deeply they still feel this loss. Oh, it's, there's a big hole. There's a big hole in our hearts, a big hole on our family.

Not only because we don't get to see her anymore, but it's just her personality is what kept us going. And she was a very upbeat and outgoing person to really help my father. My dad was very close to her. My mom was just grandma, was very close to her. Anelika's grandmother, Dina, still has photos. posters and scrapbooks of Angelica on display in the living room.

They're not just memories. They're ways of keeping her present. I still feel that she's somewhere out there. She has to be somewhere out there. That's how I feel in my heart. I don't know if it's because I want it to be that way, but that's how I feel. She needs to be somewhere out there.

Diana keeps Angelica's cold case card with her in her wallet, the three of hearts from Colorado. which she showed us while we were at her house. She also spoke of the heavy amount of heartbreaking speculation that she and her family have endured over the years. I just wish that we can find out what happened to her. You know, if anybody knows anything, I wish they would say. You know, it's really been a hard 15 years.

I mean, it's like it tears the family apart. It's hard. We have to stop listening to everybody because we're going to go crazy. the way people talk and stuff and, you know, he just you know, they tell us that they found a writing

saying up on the Mount Blanca. And it said Helica was here. And, you know, they would just say, you know, while they burned her, you know. And they would just say different things. And I told Ray, you know what? We can't

listen to them. I just tell him, why don't you go to the cops? If you know something, go to the cops. Don't come to me. What Anheleca's grandmother said is exactly what investigators want, for anyone with real information to come forward. Somebody in this valley knows about what happened to Anheleca Sandable. It's just a matter of when do they feel safe and when do they feel comfortable reporting it.

Back then, fear tied to gang activity kept people quiet. We're 15 years down the road and some of these people aren't around anymore. Some are deceased, some are in prison for the rest of their life. Some are who knows where they're at. Birch says that law enforcement has new ways to protect people who have information, and he believes that knowledge will be the key to cracking this case. I'm a firm believer, and I will say this until the day I retire, somebody knows what happened.

Somebody knows where she's at. It's just a matter of that one person finally coming forward. If you know anything that could help detectives, call the Alamosa Police Department at 719-589-2548 and ask for the Investigations Division. Or if you want to remain anonymous, you can contact crime stoppers at 719-589-4111. The Deck is an audio truck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit the Deck podcast. I think Chuck would approve.