The Deck - Blanca Acevedo (7 of Clubs, Arizona)

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Our card this week is Blanca Acevedo, the 7 of Clubs from Arizona. In June 2010, 50-year-old Blanca Acevedo was navigating a life of quiet chaos when she was found murdered in a building set aflame. The brutal case of overkill quickly went cold for the detectives on the case… But could a letter found on Blanca’s bedside table have held the key to finding her killer all along? It’s one of several clues new investigators are chasing down to solve this 15-year-old murder.If you have any information about the murder of Blanca Acevedo, please call 480-WITNESS (480-948-6377) to leave an anonymous tip. The Phoenix Police Department asks that you leave as much information as possible to help solve Blanca’s murder.View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/blanca-acevedo Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org.The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AFText Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Blanca Acevedo, the seven of clubs from Arizona. In June 2010, 50-year-old Blanca was navigating a life of quiet chaos when she was found murdered in a building set aflame. The brutal case of overkill quickly went cold for the detectives on the case. But could a letter found on Blanca's bedside table have held the key to finding her killer all along? It is one of the several clues that new investigators are chasing down to solve this 15-year-old murder.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. The On the afternoon of June 27, 2010, a man named Robert Williams was leaving a meeting at a church in Phoenix, Arizona when he looked up and saw smoke rising from a nearby area. Extra concerning was the fact that where the smoke was coming from was right near where his sister worked. So Robert jumped in his Buick and drove straight toward the billowing black smoke. But when he pulled up to 3421 West Orangewood Avenue, he was relieved to see that his sister's office

looked just fine. It was actually the nearby New Way Realty Office that was on fire. As Robert got close to the building, he saw a man beating and knocking on the window in desperation. He was yelling for anyone inside the office, but Robert knew that they needed help,

so he called the fire department. When firefighters arrived shortly before 5 p.m., they discovered more than just smoke and flames. In fact, when the first firefighter entered New Way, he tripped and stumbled on something, or rather, someone. Just a few feet inside of the building, they could see what looked like a person

laying on the floor, unresponsive. She was removed from the structure. She was covered with a blanket right there in the front of the business. She was pulled outside through the front main door out into sort of a grassy area, or actually right out front. I don't know if it was the grass area or not, but she was pulled right out front.

That's Detective Mark Nunley of the Phoenix Police Department. He said that once the fully clothed woman was removed from the burning building, first responders quickly determined that she was dead. It would be standard to investigate a death in a fire anyway. That is one of the types of deaths that we would investigate as homicide unit.

But the trauma to her head was also concerning. I don't know if they realized right away that this was an arson, like an intentional fire. When police arrived, they did start notifying detectives that this looks like there's some foul play. This wasn't just a fire in an office building. This woman had been violently attacked and shot in the head before being left in a burning building, surrounded by traces of gasoline and a discarded matchbook.

The woman had a towel draped over her middle section, which authorities discovered still on her after she'd been removed from the burning building. But they didn't have any idea what the purpose of it was. That would be up to the detectives to decide. The department dispatched Detective Kenneth Porter to the scene, along with a team of officers who started talking to witnesses

and managing the pileup of traffic that was being redirected away from the smoking office building. Their team talked to two men who had showed up first, but they didn't learn much from them. And there was also no surveillance footage to go off of. Neither New Way nor any of the surrounding businesses had cameras facing the front of the building that investigators could comb through. Amongst the chaos, officers outside the New Way office began looking around the parking lot, wondering if an unaccounted-for car might offer some clues to the woman's identity. And soon they spotted a gold Toyota sedan that, per the plates they ran, belonged to a 50-year-old New Way real estate agent named Blanca Acevedo.

As word of the fire spread, some of the Niue realtors began showing up. Probably the quickest to arrive was Elia Solis. She and her husband, Jose, lived close by, but it wasn't actually the billowing smoke that drew her to the scene. She told officers that she'd received a call from a woman who we're going to call Dina, whose father owned the realty office. a call from a woman who we're going to call Dina, whose father owned the Realty Office. The fire truck went by and then Jose says, of course, you know, kiddingly, he said,

oh no, the office is on fire. And as soon as he finished saying that, we saw the fire truck go by, then called. She said, go over to the office, it's on fire. And I'm like, what do you mean the office is on fire? So of course, you know, we leave, drop everything and we head down and everything was blocked off already. I called back and I tell her somebody was in the office,

you know, and so she said it's Blanca. And I'm like, how do you know that it's her? Elia never got a clear answer to her question. How did Dina know that it was Blanca trapped in the burning building? But Dina herself gave an explanation to police when she showed up to the scene later that day. Police talked to her for more than an hour.

And during that conversation, she said that she'd gotten a call from a neighbor alerting her to the fire. And she said it was that same neighbor who said that Blanca was in the building. Now we tried on multiple occasions to interview Dina ourselves. I mean, we even flew one of our reporters out to Phoenix to meet with her. But at the very last second, after a time and date was set for the interview, Dina refused to show up.

But Elia was happy to talk with us about her memories of that day, which included speaking at length with police. And she said that along with seeing Dina at the scene, Dina's dad was there too. Now we're also holding back his name, so we're going to call him Jack. Elia spotted Jack standing across the street from the office, watching the building burning. Elia said that she had walked over to check on him, I mean, his business was now standing in ruins, and he had also been in poor health. Elia said he seemed really confused when she approached him, and he kept talking about

Binky, his nickname for Blanca. And he told Elia, quote, he could not understand why she did not get out of the fire." The police spoke to Jack themselves when he was with Dina at the scene. And as they answered police's questions, the officers began to get a sense of Blanca's movements that day, as well as some potentially suspicious characters in the area. In that conversation with police, the only extended interview they ever had with Jack, he told them that he had been the owner of New Way for about three decades. He said that while Blanca had technically worked for him

for about five or six years, she hadn't been doing much business lately because of the bad housing market. I mean, they were just two years out from the 2008 financial crisis, mind you. Jack said that he'd been with Blanca earlier that same day. He'd seen her when he'd stopped by the office at around 11 a.m. that morning to meet another colleague that he was going to go look at properties with.

After they wrapped up, Jack had the colleague drop him off at a Macayo's restaurant at around 12.30 p.m. where he met Blanca for lunch, just the two of them. We don't know the purpose of this lunch or what they discussed. Trust me, we asked. But police don't have a record of anyone on the department asking about this, nor is there a record of them confirming that the two actually went there to eat. But Jack says that after lunch, Blanca drove them both back to New Way. When they arrived, Jack caught sight of a guy that he knew sitting on a brick planter

outside the building. And this guy, Steve, had worked around the New Way office in the past, kind of doing odd jobs. And in what appeared to be a gesture of goodwill, Jack says he paid Steve 20 bucks to help Blanca fix her computer. So Blanca, Steve, and Jack all entered the office together. Jack says they spent about 10 to 15 minutes in the office, just the three of them, while Steve helped out. And then Jack said that he and Steve left, leaving Blanca alone because he thought that maybe she was

gonna stay and use the office computer. Jack saw Steve head towards a truck in the parking lot and Jack says that he drove off in his motorhome. That was around 3 p.m., less than two hours before firefighters arrived. Like I said, this was really the only substantial conversation that police ever had with Jack. The only other communication they had was a brief follow-up with him a few weeks later. And that seemed significant to our reporter, Taylor Hartz,

when she spoke to Detective Nunley. When he was spoken to, did he have an alibi from the time that he last saw Blanca to the time that he arrived back at the scene? So he left the real estate business, leaving Blanca there. He went home. He'd taken a nap. And then he learned about this.

And so he was home when this occurred. So no way to really verify that? Nothing, nothing that was verified as far as where he was. It's especially interesting when you consider that another person who responded to the scene undermined Jack's timeline, and that was Blanca's brother, Jose Acevedo. He showed up at the fire too. And when police spoke with him, he said that earlier that day, he had talked to a guy across the street,

someone who worked at a different business in the area. And that man told him that Jack was at the realty office all day. He said he saw Jack walking around and standing in front of a door to the office just 30 minutes before the fire. But when police tried to follow this thread, they were never able to identify and interview the man that Jose mentioned.

And add to this, the neighbor, the one who called Dina to tell her about the fire in the first place, he was in and out all day. And he said he actually can confirm Jack's timeline. Said Jack got there around 10 or 11 and he was gone by three. However, all the in-between isn't so clear.

And unfortunately, police never spoke to the associate who Jack said he visited a few properties with. So they weren't able to confirm the timeline through him or even make sure that the visit happened at all. And speaking of stories we can't confirm, Jack's story regarding Steve was never confirmed. Upon further investigation, Steve's full name was determined to be Steve Buckeye.

And when the police tracked him down, Steve said that the last time he'd been at the New Way office was a whole two months prior to the murder. When confronted with the inconsistency, Jack later told police that maybe the man he thought was Steve was actually another guy, maybe Robert, not to be confused with Robert Williams, who called 911. Apparently, this Robert guy and Steve had both done odd jobs around the office in the past, so maybe Jack had just confused the two men. But unfortunately, maybe conveniently for Jack, they were never able to find this Robert. As for Dina, Jack's daughter, she hadn't spent any of that Sunday with Blanca. But she did have, let's just say, a lot of tidbits to share with police.

It's hard to know what to make of them all, but Dina put stock in these pieces of information, though they don't necessarily paint a cohesive picture. According to the report, Dina didn't know of anyone who wanted to hurt Blanca, but Dina made a point to tell the officers that there were a lot of people coming and going around two halfway houses across the street from the office building. Plus, there was an AA chapter that sometimes met in the New Way office. Dina implied that there were people connected to those organizations or dwellings that would be worth talking to.

She also said that she'd seen an unfamiliar man sitting outside of the office in the week leading up to Blanca's murder. Dina described him as a guy with medium build, tattoos on his arms. And Dina said that he told her he'd just been released from prison and asked her for a piece of fruit. One of the New Way agents claimed to have also seen a similar-looking man near the office during that week. But there's no evidence in the report that this man was ever identified, located, or interviewed. Now, a few days after the murder,

when Dina was walking through the crime scene with police, she pointed out various items that she implied were odd. For example, she pointed out a potted plant in a vase that she didn't recognize. The vase was black, covered in illustrations of eyes and noses. Dina thought the vase had appeared

around the time the mysterious man had been outside of the office asking her for fruit. And along with the vase, Dina told police that she found a cross in the office that appeared to be homemade. I mean, it was a large cross, so big that the fire investigator mistook it for a piece of furniture during the cleanup.

Dina said she had never seen this thing before, and she emphasized that New Way agents were not allowed religious items in the office. She insisted that the cross was not in the office before Blanca's murder. And police records don't show that any of the New Way employees brought it up. Now, police gathered a couple of other strange testimonies from witnesses at the scene, including one regarding a seemingly random phone call received by a New Way agent. According to the Realtor, she received a phone call at around 1.30 p.m. the day of Blanca's murder, while Blanca was out to lunch with Jack.

The agent said that the caller identified himself as James, and he told her that the door to the office building was, quote, wide open, but no one was there. Now, it's not clear from the police report where this woman was when she received the call. Like, was she at work, where clearly that wouldn't be true, or on a personal line somewhere else? I don't know.

But she did tell police that she didn't recognize James' voice or his number. According to the report, she didn't appear to ask him for more information during that phone call either. So why she got that call from someone she didn't know about such a specific detail seems odd. But when police attempted to follow up with this agent after the fire, she never responded, and so James was never identified. Then there was the report of a strange conversation between two other realtors. On the day of Blanca's murder, a New Way agent named Brenda called many of her colleagues to

let them know the news about the murder. But there was one reaction that she couldn't shake. When Brenda called fellow agent Casey, she responded with a troubling recollection involving another, former New Way agent. Casey said that this guy, Wade, had lunch with Jack one day. And Wade told her that during their lunch, Jack was acting strangely. Jack repeatedly said that during their lunch, Jack was acting strangely.

Jack repeatedly said that he needed to quote-unquote change something because he was in financial trouble. Then Wade allegedly said to Casey, supposedly through laughter, quote, that old bastard finally did it. He got Blanca to set a fire and she must not have made it out on time." End quote. Now we tried reaching out to both Casey and Wade for comment, but they never responded to our requests. Whether there is any credence to Wade's remarks remains unknown. But it is worth noting that we know that's not how Blanca died. It wasn't the smoke that killed her by not getting out in time. It was the wound to her head that, by the way, at this point in the investigation,

they had determined could not have been self-inflicted. And there was no weapon found at the scene. No one in Blanca's personal life believed that she would harm herself either. And as a devout Christian, it would also go against some of her deepest beliefs. Her two sons were so devastated by her loss that they declined to talk to us for this story. But we were able to talk to Blanca's unofficial foster son, Jeff Davis. Blanca was one of my best friends' mother.

She was a single mom raising two boys. She was mom to all of us." Jeff lived with Blanca and her sons as a teen. She took him in when his life became chaotic and essentially raised him alongside her own two sons. He emphasized what a big part religion played in Blanca's life. Blanca just, she loved life. She loved the Lord. That was first before anything. Even I would say even before her children. I know that sounds weird, but she put the Lord first.

And she put her faith in the Lord. Neither Jeff nor either of Blanca's sons were at the scene. They were only notified later that day. And when they were, it came as a huge shock. I mean, so much so that police weren't even able to spend much time with her oldest son, Alejandro, who was just in town visiting his mom. He was so distraught that they weren't able to glean much from him, just that he had spoken with Blanca at around noon that same day on the phone. But as police were with Alejandro at Blanca's home, Blanca's boyfriend Felipe stopped by.

And before we go any further, Felipe is a pseudonym that we're using throughout this episode at the request of police. So Felipe arrived at Blanca's house not long after Alejandro received the awful news. But what happened next, or rather, what didn't happen, was arguably strange. In the report, the officer notes that Felipe stopped by and that he was identified as Blanca's boyfriend. But that's it. He wasn't talked to then, and in the initial days and weeks after Blanca's murder, Felipe wasn't questioned any further.

Not even after police learned about some troubling allegations. According to Blanca's family, she and Felipe were reportedly having issues because of his alleged womanizing and drinking. Blanca's brother Jose also reported to police that Blanca had been threatened by Felipe's ex-wife. Jose didn't share when exactly those threats took place or what exactly was said, but he mentioned it on multiple occasions to police. He also alleged that Felipe's daughter had threatened Blanca, too. She

supposedly had ties to a gang as well. But it doesn't seem like the investigators tried to find out more through Felipe or ever track the women down independently. Our reporter Taylor pressed the current investigator on this oversight. They don't re-interview him formally as part of their initial investigation? No, no they didn't. They interviewed family and coworkers, but they didn't follow up and do another interview with Felipe.

Is that unusual? In my opinion, I think so. I think he definitely should have been interviewed again. As the day of Blanca's murder came to a close, the police gathered what they could from the New Way office. Given the destruction caused by the fire, it was challenging to preserve evidence that might be linked to Blanca's murder. The police report shows that matches, a matchbook, and traces of gasoline were found at the scene, along with personal items like eyeglasses, makeup brush handles, keys, and a cell phone. All these items were found burned or partially melted.

Perhaps most poignantly, Blanca's white high heels were also gathered. Though she'd been fully clothed in a tan dress when they found her, she hadn't been wearing shoes. So the police concluded that Blanca must have taken them off herself under her desk before she was murdered. Specifically before she was shot, or at least that's the assumption they'd been operating under this whole time because of the wound to her head. But two days into the investigation, they learned that they'd been wrong. It turned out that Blanca hadn't died from a gunshot wound, and she hadn't died from the fire either.

When Blanca's autopsy was completed, the results showed that all of Blanca's injuries were the result of blunt force trauma. It also concluded that she had been strangled and stabbed in the neck with a sharp object. So Blanca sustained approximately 25 separate blunt force trauma wounds to her head. And I mean, that's a lot. From your perspective as a homicide investigator for years, like, does that seem like a lot to

you? Yeah, it seems excessive. And what does that indicate? I mean, we could speculate that there's some hatred, some personal crime of passion. A lot of those case studies would indicate that this is probably someone that was very upset with her for some reason. It was hard for both Blanca's family and investigators to imagine what that reason might be. But just as the news of Blanca's real cause of death sank in, her oldest son Alejandro called the police to say that he had found something unsettling.

Four days after his mother's murder, he had come across a letter on his mom's nightstand. Naturally, he assumed that Blanca had written it before she died. Alejandra handed over the two-page letter to police. Now, it wasn't addressed to anyone, but it described a lot of grievances against one person in particular who is named in the letter. And though it's not dated or signed by the author, Alejandro does believe that Blanca wrote it. And he believes that she wrote it to her boss Jack shortly before she died. Here is a voice actor reading the full letter.

I have been wanting to talk to you, but you're always busy. I'm always busy too. I can't believe how time flies. It's been for three years already, you seem to go on forever. Doing the same thing forever without stopping to think and wonder and do things differently. You seem not to care about anything but working and making money. Like if the world is going to go on forever. And it's not.

All this time, I've been trying to tell you, you just don't want to understand it. You know me and know how I feel, but it's just impossible for me to accept that you don't care about anything or me or anybody else. You know that I struggle so much with the business and at home. You know that my son got sick because I was always working and left him alone. If you had care about me and my son, you could have been the one to tell me to either quit the business or pay me more, so that I could pay all my bills. Instead, you kept telling me that you were going to put deals together for me. You know how hard I tried and you even went with me,

and we wouldn't get anything. I also asked you to do different split with me. And you think that it's because you're so equal that you couldn't do it for me. Because you couldn't do it for everybody. Well, I thought I mean at least a bit more than everybody else. Then those two people that wanted me to come to work for them. You convinced me that they were just lying, that all they wanted was to get in my pants. You were wrong. One of them is my friend that

just wanted somebody to help him with his deals. He's 67 years old and he didn't want to work so hard anymore. Well, I never changed companies and his broker didn't want me to work with them. She said that there was something that was holding me with new way. He was upset. He told me I don't understand that I still had two more deals that a loan officer gave me and one was his own purchase and still stayed with you. You also know the reason. You kept telling me that we were going to talk about our relationship later. You led me on and on. You kept telling me in a few months, then for your birthday, et cetera. Actually, that's why

BEEP doesn't like me anymore because he was friendly and willing to help me with any questions. You remember him saying that, but he got very angry to see that you were giving me the cold shoulder and leading me on. So did ***

and that I kept believing you and calling you. They also knew that you were telling me differently when I saw you. Now, I just can't believe that you don't care even when I'm telling you I'm still struggling. How can you do that to me, Jack? To someone who really cares about you, your business, etc. How can you be so unfair to me? You just wanted me to keep working, to pay for your overhead, meaning your salary and your managers. If you had been truthful, I would have left sooner.

If it didn't work out, I could have came back, but at least I could have tried and make a bit more money. Now I have a car payment, bills, and my student loans. I just can't not even ask you to give me money. I know you wouldn't, but you know that you lied to me when you were leading me on for a whole year. The first year, I have to accept I just plainly believed in you. I thought you would take care of me, and even more, I thought you loved me. It was all a lie. Now I feel as if you just used me and it's an awful feeling. Remember that one time that we were watching the program and a guy had been in jail for a crime he didn't commit? You said that if you win the lottery you would give him some money. But Jack, you don't have to

win the lottery to help someone. It actually will be more meaningful with your money. But how could you do that if instead of giving, you took from me? If you had told me two years ago what you told me when I left, you know that I would have left and tried to make a bit more. Wouldn't it have been better for me to pay you 12,000 than 40,000? Imagine all the things I could do with that money. And for you, what's 40,000 Jack? For all the money you have, even just invested, does it really mean everything? Or you're just like the rich people. You even said the people with 1 million want to, people with 2 went 3, etc. You said it yourself.

Greed never has enough. It's okay if you just work and work for it, but to actually lie and lie for it? Isn't it stealing from a single mom and a child? What's the difference if you take it or keep lying to take it? I know I'm telling you harshly what I told you before. You just don't want to accept it. Does it matter to know that you're just leaving your family more money after knowing how you kept leading me on. I remember the letter I wrote to my card well. I wonder how it would feel if you knew the truth about you leading me on, just to keep me working for you giving 50% of the little money I was making. I told you and you knew that I only had deals from people from church etc. I wasn't doing floor time

anymore. I guess I was just desperate to make it and to have enough to pay all my bills and now I need insurance. Now I have medical problems not only for my son but for myself as well. You still don't care. You still blinded with the shine of gold. You just don't want to accept even just with me that you lied and lied. How can you just lied so much and not feel any kind of remorse? You once told us the story of the guy that called you a coward. I thought you were not a coward, you were just broke. I felt bad for you like for the whole world. But to actually lie to me and lie about lying? Isn't that a worst kind of coward? Can you at least not lie about lying? I want to see that.

I'll do anything to see you just say the truth. And then, when your son was sick and you were so broke, you just felt so angry. And that anger only made you become so obsessed with making money. How can you forget what it felt like to be so desperate and so broke? And with me, you see me so desperate and disappointed and still feel nothing? That's why I don't date. Because 99.9% of the guys are such jerks that most of them don't care about their own children. How can they care about someone else's? You are in the position to help, like I told you.

If you don't and just not care about helping anybody, can you at least not take from someone who cares about you? How much must you love money to say I like you, you work for me, give me 50% of everything you make? You say that joking that you would take from your wife and not give her, but it's really horrible to hear you say that because it's really the truth. You would be the worst boyfriend ever. Not even the jerks take so much from their dates. Even if they don't give anything, at least they don't take. Well, some of them do.

Here I'm pleading with you one last time. All I have to tell you is, you will reap what you sow. One day, you will remember me and my words since you don't want to hear or know God's word. We will pay for what we do here on earth, and most likely with our children. Or their children. Just came to my mind the verse that says that God makes miracles to generations, to the people that love him,

and visits their rebellion of those to the fourth generation. It's hard to hear that and not wonder why police never had any additional conversations with Jack, especially because the exact nature of Blanca's relationship with Jack isn't totally clear. Blanca's brother Jose told police that Jack had allegedly tried to get Blanca to spend time alone with him, even though she never displayed any interest in doing so. Jose said that Jack would ask Blanca to tell him about the Bible to spend time with her, and that she was afraid of him because she believed that he could talk to God and the devil.

That said, the letter raises the possibility that they did have a relationship she valued, and that at least at one time there was mutual respect. Even with all the questions raised by that letter, that was it. The contents were never investigated further. Blanca's financials were never pulled. And there wasn't even a handwriting analysis done to confirm if that letter was definitively written by her. That was the biggest investigative lead detectives had for a very long time.

The other evidence didn't go anywhere. Testing on portions of Blanca's clothing and fingernail clippings and bloodstains didn't turn up a DNA profile of a suspect. There was no evidence found indicating that Blanca had been sexually assaulted, and Blanca didn't have any defensive wounds. Which isn't surprising when you take into consideration the fact that she had wounds to the back of her head and her shoes were off. To me, that indicates that she was probably taken by surprise, maybe as she sat at her desk, maybe by someone she felt comfortable with,

or by someone she didn't know was in the office. At the time of the initial investigation, police briefly considered Jack a person of interest, but nothing came of it. Letter aside, they said no motive was ever established for him. In fact, the police thought Jack may have even lost money after the fire because there didn't appear to be an active insurance policy on the office building at the time. So, as quickly as flames swept up the New Way office building, Blanca's case was cold and went on a shelf to begin collecting dust. All the way up until 2016 when a new team was assigned her case.

That's when Phoenix PD decided to track down a source that the original team never spoke to. Blanca's boyfriend, Felipe. In October 2016, two new detectives assigned to Blanca's case went to meet Felipe at a Phoenix IHOP. Felipe started by telling detectives that he and Blanca had been in a relationship for about four years before she was murdered. They'd met after she tried to sell a house to one of his family members. It was complicated though, because the relationship began

when Felipe was still married to his ex-wife, who we're gonna call Michelle, at police's request. Felipe said that he, quote, did not believe his ex-wife was involved in Blanca's death, end quote. He said he had heard them arguing on the phone a few times, but that was the extent of the tension. Though, I know that wasn't exactly true. A little digging shows that just over a year before she was murdered, Blanca actually

filed a police report, and in it she described Michelle threatening her over the phone. According to the report, Michelle called Blanca twice in an evening and told her she was going to quote, get even and would pay to have it done. She allegedly told Blanca that she would live to regret stealing Felipe. Our reporter talked to Detective Nunley about this too. So in 2009 she made a police report about these threatening phone calls. The information that was received wasn't enough for the detectives to follow up on it. There's no follow up supplement or anything from the 2009 report, but it was documented I think just so that there was a paper trail in case there

was any additional threats or anything else that could show a pattern, which maybe would help for any future investigations. When investigators find that report from 2009, do they go and speak to this woman? No. No, they didn't. At least nothing that's been documented, but no. If you were doing this investigation today, would you have gone to speak to her?

Yes. There's a few things to note here. First, it's not clear if the original investigative team found that 2009 report. I'd wager to say it's unlikely, since it's not noted in the case file, but we don't know for sure. Detective Nunley did dig it up when he was assigned the case.

And second, when Detective Nunley says that he'd do things differently today, he really means it. But more on that in a moment. From police records of that 2016 conversation with Felipe, he doesn't say if he knew about those threatening telephone calls that Michelle allegedly made to Blanca. But he did say that he didn't believe Michelle would have hurt her. Felipe also maintained that his relationship with Blanca was good.

Sure, they had their arguments, but that was it, he says. He explained that before Blanca died, they were living apart after he decided to move out of her house. His commute to work was too far from Blanca's residence and Blanca was dealing with major financial problems, he said. She was supposedly in debt and putting a lot of money into a property in Mexico. But Felipe made it clear to the detectives that he and Blanca were still in a relationship before she died. He'd even recently suggested that they get married. Coming out of that interview,

there was one important thing I took note of. Felipe did not have a verifiable alibi for the time of Blanca's murder. A few weeks after Felipe's 2016 interview, police dug up another name that came up in passing in the initial report. Paula Campos. Paula was a church friend of Blanca's and had known her for about 8 to 10 years before

she died. Paula said that she'd actually spoken with Blanca the same day she was murdered when the two of them were at church together that morning. Blanca told Paula that she was planning on working that day after the church service. But what Paula told detectives about the day after Blanca's murder seemed much more significant. On Monday, June 28th, 2010, Paula saw Jack at Blanca's house. You see, Paula had gone there to visit her family after hearing what had happened

to her friend, and she answered the door when Jack knocked. Paula told police that Jack asked if she could tell him what had happened to Blanca, and Paula remembered that he was with a younger woman who she didn't recognize. While she explained to Jack that she simply didn't know what had happened to Blanca, Paula noticed something on his arm. Two scratch marks. When she asked Jack how he got those, he said they came from a cat. Now in one section of the report, Paula agrees that the marks look cat-like, but in another section they're described as, quote,

fresh scratches, like nail scratches, end quote. After their brief interaction, Jack passed Paula his business card and told her to give it to Blanca's son Alejandro. He wanted Alejandro to call him, but he didn't give an exact reason why. And we still don't know if Alejandro ever did call Jack because he didn't want to be interviewed. After that, Paula never saw Jack again. Despite the arguably odd nature of the interaction, police didn't deem it significant enough

to follow up on further. And they never circled back around to Jack in their review, the only classified person of interest and one of the last people to see Blanca. And the reason they didn't circle back in their 2016 review is because Jack died in 2016, right before they began re-interviewing people. Most recently, investigators have taken steps to look into Felipe's ex-wife Michelle, the

woman who Blanca reported threatened her. Detective Nunley has been in touch with her quite recently. On May 29, 2025, police picked Michelle up on a court order to get a DNA sample and to be interviewed. Detective Nunley said that she denied any involvement in Blanca's murder and said that she had no knowledge of who killed her. Nunley said that they also gave Michelle a polygraph, and she failed when questioned about her involvement in the crime.

Although during a second interview, Michelle was insistent that she had nothing to do with the murder or the arson. She provided an alibi along with other information, which Detective Nunley is now looking into to see if he can corroborate. As of this recording, Michelle has not been arrested or charged with any crimes related to Blanca's murder or the arson of the office. Neither has her daughter or Felipe.

No one has. It's exciting to see movement in this case after so long, but there is no guarantee that police have enough information to close this case. And Blanca's family, especially her two sons, deserve to have answers for what happened to her. When our reporter Laura interviewed Jeff, the man who Blanca raised as a teenager, he described Blanca as a woman who was full of love for her family.

Jeff offered us insight into the warmer part of Blanca's life where she's shown as a mother, loved her kids, and loved her God. She loved the Lord. She went to church all the time. She led her children in the right direction and did everything she could for them. She put me to work doing chores around the house. I can remember I'd go to get in the shower,

and she would stop me and hand me a sponge and some cleaning stuff and be like, while you're in there, you better clean the shower. But perhaps best of all, Jeff shared some of the little quirks that made Blanca charming, funny and totally human. So the last time all of us were together was at my wedding. And I remember at the end of the wedding, she stayed, she was kind of helping clean up and do things. Now she was taking, everybody was kind of dispersing, but she was gathering all the

centerpieces and taking them home with her. And my wife's like, why is she taking all the centerpieces? She's taking all of them. And I walked over and I'm like, Blanca, what are you doing? Why are you taking all the centerpieces? And she's like, well, that's what you're supposed to do at a wedding. No one took theirs, so I'm taking them all. They're gonna be all over the house.'"

And I just, I thought that was kind of neat, you know, that she wanted all of them because she was just gonna put them all over her house. And, you know, she's like, "'I gotta remember this.'" Today, Detective Nunley told us that they need people to come forward with new information to advance Blanca's case.

Her death was the result of a brutal attack by someone who was determined to inflict serious harm on her. And that fact stays with him. And it stays with Blanca's two sons, both of whom have struggled to live with the knowledge that their mother died in such a horrific way. She's at work on a Sunday afternoon, trying to get her finances in order. She's got a lot of stuff going on. Just a real tragic victim of this situation, where she was brutally murdered. And I think anybody with conscience, you know, just look inside and if you know, if you have information,

come forward and help us bring justice to her and her family. So if you know something about the murder of Blanca Acevedo, now is the time to act. Detective Nunley told us that anyone who has first, second, or even third-hand information or tips should reach out. If you're scared of retaliation, he requests that you call 480-WITNESS to leave an anonymous tip. He asks that you leave as much information as possible to help solve Blanca's murder. The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis.

To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?