True Crime with Kimbyr - She Predicted Her Own Murder: The Haunting Case of Valerie Reyes: Part 2

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

In Part 2 of this haunting case on True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha dives deeper into the final days of Valerie Reyes. As Valerie’s loved ones recall her growing fears and ominous premonitions, a disturbing timeline begins to emerge. From unsettling behavior to cryptic confessions, Valerie seemed to know something terrible was coming. Who was she afraid of—and why? With compassion and clarity, Kimbyrleigha pieces together Valerie’s chilling descent into fear, leading up to her mysterious disappearance. What was Valerie trying to escape? Find out in this powerful continuation of her story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You heard Captain Barry confirm that the victim had been found inside of a suitcase. She was bound by her hands and feet, and I'm adding what was left out. She was also bound at the knees, or as they would say, she was hogtied. The captain didn't provide all of the details, but he did mention that they did have some leads as to her identity, but they wanted to be able to notify next of kin before just announcing that publicly out of respect. And he reminded everyone that every victim has a family connected to them, and I think that's really important. it does get forgotten sometimes. Now I'm going to play you the reporter's questions

and the captain's answers. It can be a little hard to hear them, but I'll make sure that you get the most important parts by confirming what was said, because I do want to point out a couple things. As far as manor or cause of death, we have no information released at this time. The highway worker, what made him suspicious

when he made him stop to look at this? Again, it's only about, I'd say, 15, 20 feet off the shoulder of the roadway. It's just passing seeing a suitcase and as part of their routine duties when they sweep through their front roads. And Captain, this seems like a pretty conspicuous way to dump the body, a bright,

brightly colored suitcase right off a busy road. That strike you as odd or? At this point, it's early in the investigation. We're still looking at all the needs to have. Balfourke and how much? It's very difficult to tell, especially with the environmental conditions that we've had. We've had the fluctuating temperatures. In this particular area, when the victim was found, it was kind of a low-lying area, so it's a different temperature than what's on the roadway.

A lot of complexity in there, I think that's going to have to be left to the medical exam. Sir. How large is... I don't really have the dimensions for me, but I can give you kind of a frame of reference. It's not something that you would put on a, like a... The overhead been on an aircraft, but I would say a full-size suitcase of that better description. I think our age range from this morning, again, about 18 to 30. I think that appears pretty solid.

It does not appear to be a juvenile. That's pretty much we're heading to swing. Down at the hand in the feats. Can you tell us any more about that? No, nothing more. I'm prepared to release this time. He explained how the highway worker stumbled upon the suitcase. And then you may have heard one reporter ask about the conspicuous way in which it appeared this bright-colored suitcase

was deposited in a very public area of the roadway, and they wondered if that struck the captain as odd. The captain really didn't provide a clear answer to that. He merely mentioned that they were looking into all leads that they had. The leads can mean many things. A lead can mean a piece of evidence at the crime scene. It can mean the injuries that a person sustained. It could even mean the lack of evidence of all of those things. That can all lead detectives to understanding more about.

about the crime and possibly the perpetrator. And they were truly still in the beginning of this investigation. Now, it was probably very hard for you to hear, but one of the reporters asked if they could get a ballpark figure of the time of death or how long the victim had been there. The captain explained that due to the temperature being cold, as well as the fact that the suitcase was in a low-lying area,

it was even colder than the roadway. So they were dealing with a bit of a complexity in those terms, and he told them that they would have to wait for the autopsy, Finally, one more important question was when the reporter asked how big the suitcase was. And that's a fair question considering there was a body found inside of it. The captain said he didn't have the exact dimensions, but for reference, it wasn't small enough to fit an overhead bin on an airplane. So more of a full-sized luggage.

So keep that in mind because there will be more information about that later. Okay, so that wraps up what we can learn from the first few hours after the body was discovered. Now there was some drone footage and other footage of this area, so I'm going to be playing that for you because the area of this exact location was out of sight from nearby residences. There was a small depression on the east side of Glenville Road near Stillman Lane, and it would appear that that would be a really convenient place for someone to park, which is probably why the person who did this chose this particular area of the road. Maybe they'd actually been to this area before, maybe in the warmer months, and they remembered it being woodsy and dense with brush. but it was nothing like that this time of year, but by the time they got there, they probably wanted to get as far away from the body as possible.

So they still left her there, because clearly, this wasn't really a great area to hide anything. Now, all this information only left detectives with more questions. The next day, the medical examiner conducted the autopsy and was able to confirm the manner of death was homicide. But interestingly, and I think we would know that, by the way, but I'm just pointing that out. They have to put it on the report.

It's like she didn't tie herself up and put her in the suitcase. But interestingly, even though she had head trauma to her face, the back of her head, the front of her head, the official cause of death was homicidal exfixia, which we actually do not hear very often. This is not the strangulation type of exfixia. This is something that I actually have not covered before, but coincidentally. It has been in the news recently in the Sarah Boone case. She allegedly zipped up her boyfriend in a suitcase and left him there to die, and he was confined to a very small space over time and you could not breathe. Asphyxia itself, as most of you know, occurs when the body doesn't receive enough oxygen. But forensically speaking, there are actually three types.

There's strangulation, chemical asphyxiation, and suffocation. And this one falls into the last category. Suffocation due to homicidal intent to cause death. Someone placed her inside the suitcase when she was still alive, found, and gagged, without the ability to breathe, and over time she slowly suffocated to death. There was an increased likelihood due to the head trauma that the victim may have been unconscious before being placed inside the suitcase. We won't ever know if she regained enough consciousness

to be aware of what was going on and that she was dying in a very terrible way. It's heartbreaking and it does show the extreme sense of cruelty. That suitcase became her coffin. And as far as her identity was concerned, it was known at the time that there was a missing woman in New York who matched the description of this victim. So Valerie's parents were notified on Wednesday evening, February 6th,

that a body had been found found. At which point her father and her older brother went down to the morgue, and they sadly made a positive identification of the body. It was 24-year-old Valerie Reyes, and as you can probably imagine, this was devastating news, especially after Valerie had confided in her mother that she thought someone was going to murder her. It seemed like quite the premonition unless someone had been threatening her life. That's what detectives wanted to find out next. Was there anyone close to Valerie who may have had issues with her, who would want to heart? her. The medical examiner did notice what appeared to be some skin underneath Valerie's

fingernails, so clippings were taken to be analyzed. They also took swabs of her private areas, her chest, to be tested for the presence of male DNA. But this could take weeks, if not months, to get results back. And as word spread of the positive identification, the tight-knit community of New Rochelle was gripped by grief. Friends, family, and neighbors that have known Valerie as gentle, kind, and an artistic soul made her death even more tragic. Social media quickly was filled with heartfelt tributes, photos, and memories shared by those who loved her. They remembered her bright smile, her love for books, and her genuine kindness that touched everyone that she met. Her father, Sal, wrote on Facebook that a vigil would be held

the next evening on Thursday, February 7th, at 5 p.m. at Glen Island Park and New Rochelle. He said, at this unimaginably difficult time, we're asking for love, support, and respect to our family, for the loss of my beautiful daughter, Valerie Reyes, who is now resting in heaven. And on Thursday, Norma went public to discuss her daughter and the fears that she shared with her. Norma was so brave. She did an on-camera interview in the living room

of the family home, and I'm going to play that for you now. It's actually where I gathered a lot of the information about the phone call and the text messages that she and Valerie exchanged the last time that they spoke. So here we go. Monday night conversation we had. She was just really scared, very frightened, like I said, and fearing for her life.

She didn't mention anything. She didn't mention no one specific. She just mentioned, I'm really, really scared. I'm really paranoid, mommy. I'm getting anxiety attacks, and she couldn't, she was like hardly, you know, she could have, having a hard time talking, and I would tell her, calm down. You need to calm down and tell me, you know, why is it that you're feeling this way? like, did somebody threaten you?

Did you see somebody outside your house? Obviously, I asked about the boyfriend, the ex-boyfriend, and she said, no. If anything, you know, I felt comfortable him being with me here. Now that he's, you know, gone because I had broken up on Thursday. Now I'm going to be scared being here, you know, like just continuing with her living there by herself. She was just really scared about that.

It's just the whole, her being afraid of being in her apartment and mentioning, I'm afraid someone's gonna murder me, like the women that she sees or hears about getting murdered, and then her story ending up this way. It's just like, we wonder who made her feel this way. Did somebody mention to her? Somebody's out to get to or something. something. We don't know. You heard that Valerie never mentioned anyone specifically.

It seemed like she truly had a genuinely bad feeling that something was going to happen to her, a feeling that she could not shake. So was this more of a premonition than anything else? And some of you may not believe that can even happen. Some call it being psychic. Others believe it's God. But gut feelings can be a real thing. And even though Norma was still wondering if anyone had threatened her daughter or did anything to make her feel uneasy, there wasn't any proof of that yet.

So now it just seemed like a very weird coincidence. Or she could have just been very in tune to the vibes around her and was really able to pinpoint that something bad was going to happen. I have felt that way. And it has been true in my own life, so tell me if you have. But there is more. You know, they might think that she's just a runaway,

that she's just, you know, going into bad things or whatever. No, that's not the case. I can promise you that's not the case. She didn't, she wasn't, she wasn't, She wasn't looking for anything at 2 in the morning or saying, oh, well, I'm going to go to the club or whatever. No, that's not valid.

She hated those places. There's so many questions that I have, and I'm sure they're doing their thing, their investigation, their part, but I think I need to know. I think I need to know where, you know, where, just I don't even know how to explain it. I think I need to know. I'm really hoping that by doing this,

we can find justice for Valerie, my daughter, my precious daughter. The people that did this need to pay. They really need to pay. They really do. Norma wanted the public to know that Valerie wasn't a runaway. She wasn't into drugs or partying or even going out late and getting into trouble. That was not her at all. She didn't like going to clubs.

So all of this just left Norma with more questions. At the end, I felt so bad for her. She just kept kind of like looking off into the distance on camera, maybe at her husband or someone else in the room, but she just kept repeating that she just needs to know. She just needs to know. And at the very least, she was hoping by coming on camera, they would get justice for her daughter.

Now that same night, Valerie's family did hold that vigil in Glen Island Park in New Rochelle. It was a cold, damp night, but that did not stop people from showing up and showing their support. A few hundred people, including dozens of Valerie's friends and close family members, huddled tightly together. Many of them were holding white candles

and singing and praying in Spanish. A lot of people were crying. The gathering took place beneath the park's old German-style castle, and there were women who were holding rosary beads, beside circles of candles, adorned with images of Mary or Jesus. Norma gave a very moving speech, directed at the unknown person who had treated her daughter

so cruelly. She said, my daughter did not deserve whatever you did to her. My daughter was pure. My daughter was a good soul. You will be caught. Sooner or later, he will get caught. I know it. I know it. And she added that she was amazing. And she wasn't just saying that because she was her mother. She said she was a beautiful soul, a beautiful daughter to her, a beautiful sister, and amazing in so many ways. Then she told Valerie that she loved her. It was really hard to watch this. It's a very sad video. And you You can tell how broken Norma was. She was so overcome with emotion she actually just fell into the arms of the people around her.

Valerie's best friend Jeff pulled out a key chain in the shape of a sandal from his pocket. It had the name Valerie inscribed on it and he told the media that he bought it for her while he was on vacation in Mexico, but he never got the chance to give it to her. So now he planned on keeping it on his keys to remember her. As the vigil came to a close, they heard people shouting, El Nina, El Nina, L'Nia, L'Nia, spreading through the crowd, meaning the girl, the girl, the girl. Another man cried out justice for Valerie. Within just a few days, a go-fund me page was set up by a friend to help the family pay for funeral expenses and it raised nearly $3,000 in just three hours.

But soon the case would take a kind of unexpected turn. Remember those road workers who went out there and they stumbled upon her body? Well, that foreman James Clifford, when he had been called out there by his employee, he became the subject of an investigation because this man took photos of the crime scene on his phone,

including an image of Valerie still bound with a visible head wound. It's pretty rude, disrespectful, and disgusting, in my opinion, and a lot of people shared the same sentiment. Because then he took it upon himself to share these photos with other people. Now, sharing these photos was a clear violation of privacy, not only for Valerie, but also for the integrity

of this entire investigation. The last thing her grieving family needed was to see these gruesome images of Valerie circulating, among Clifford's acquaintances. And unfortunately, one of the people that Clifford showed the photo to was a business owner from Connecticut, and they, it's so sad for me to think about this because it's all money-based. He chose to share them with a media outlet.

And when he did, he had to reveal where he got them from. And that is how James Clifford was investigated. He didn't face any criminal charges, which I was pretty surprised about, but instead he received a very minor disciplinary action, including a brief suspension, he was placed on paid administrative leave for like five days, and he was demoted as foreman for six months. Oh, and then he lost five vacation days, and he had to do a mandatory sensitivity training, but he claimed it was just an error in judgment. Now, his attorney, Lindy Arsoe, who was representing him, said that taking that photo was not with any ill intent. She said it was actually the

actions of a traumatized person who was stunned by what they encountered. She said he was actually devastated by what he found and it was an obvious error in judgment to take a picture of it. But she argued that he certainly didn't have any ill will or bad intention. But I have to say, I do understand being shocked about something happening, but I also think you have time to cool down, think about what you're doing, and you're still sharing these photos with other people. So, I don't really buy that. But the public was outraged and Greenwich First Selectman, Peter Tessay had to make a public apology on behalf of the county. He said that Valor was a daughter, a sister and a cousin of a family who's suffering a tremendous loss of this time,

and the thoughtfulness and insensitive behavior by this employee was inexcusable. He wanted to extend his heartfelt condolences to her family. Now, there were many reactions throughout the community once Valerie's body had been found. Lucy Nolan, she's the director of policy and public relations at the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence. She made a very bold statement to the news explaining that the nature in the way in which her body was found displayed an extreme example of the objectification of women. She said, quote, it's disgusting. As women, we've always been taught and some men believe that our bodies are for their gratification. Women are taught our whole lives that we have to look over our shoulders, have to be careful, end quote. Now, even though at this

point in the investigation, there was no evidence to suggest that this was domestic in nature. the article that this was included in correlated the way Valerie was found to assuming that it was either a partner or a man who forced himself on her and then discarded her afterward. Since 2000, there have been about 14 deaths related to domestic altercations per year in Connecticut. I'm going to get to more of that in just a moment or at the end of this video. But remember Valerie's neighbor, Brenda? Well, she had noticed that Valerie wasn't around for a couple of mornings, but she just figured that she went on vacation again until she saw a Facebook post. Can you imagine finding this out from a Facebook post? I can't. It's never happened to me yet, but I cannot imagine that. It was on February 1st,

and it had the missing person's poster posted, and when she saw that, she just started crying. Still, she was holding out hope that Valerie would be found safe. But then when she learned of the discovery of the body, she could not believe it. She said it's disgusting, especially since the person who did this to her is still out there. Then she commented about, the road worker who took those pictures of her body saying that this is not a joke. It's someone's life and she explained how her children are horrified by the news. It's the first time that something like that had happened so close to home. She said she feels like her children are now prisoners because she doesn't know where the murder took place.

She doesn't even feel safe letting the kids out in their own front yard. I'm going to play a video of Brenda being interviewed. I can't believe someone heard her. She's innocent. She's amazing. She was amazing to the kids in the block. She was a sweetheart. I don't understand how someone could hurt someone like that. She could have been murdered across the street. You don't want your kids outside.

You don't know what's going on. And for them not to identify anybody or find anybody makes it even more worse and scary. It's heartbreaking. Clearly, Valerie was so well-liked and would be missed by so many people. The community wanted answers. So back to the investigation.

Remember the private investigator who was initially hired by Valerie's family? Well, he had done some preliminary research into her bank statements, specifically related to her most recent transactions. Well, New Rochelle and Greenwich detectives took over that part of the investigation, and her bank card was their main focus going forward. Since the last time she spoke to anyone was the night of Monday, January 28th, the investigators began looking at any transactions after that time,

and it turned out her debit card had been used at 5 a.m. on January 29th at a Chase Bank ATM close to her apartment in New Rochelle. It was only a five-minute drive away, and $1,000 was withdrawn. Now, the investigators pulled footage from a pole camera located in the bank area and they didn't see Valerie. Instead, they watched as a black Honda CRV pulled up, parked across the street in the neighboring parking lot, and then a person that appeared to be a man dressed in dark color clothing, exited the vehicle, crossed the street, and then entered the bank vestibule outside where the ATM was located. He looked like he was wearing a black hooded sweatshirt over his head, dark pants, a pair of black sneakers with white soles. And after a couple minutes, he exited the ATM area,

got back in the Honda, and drove westbound. Now, this was their big break, their first really big lead in the case. Clearly, this man was in possession of Valerie's bank card. So they began searching other cameras in the area for any other spottings of the same black Honda CRV. They also searched license plate readers, and they found a black CRV license plate

that was captured two minutes away located in the intersection of North Avenue and Lincoln Avenue and New Rochelle. They ran this license plate number, and it matched to a two, 2017, Black Honda CRV that was registered to a company out of Flushing, Queens, New York, which was about a 20-minute drive away from Valerie's apartment. And as they continued searching through bank records, they saw that another $1,000

withdrawal occurred on January 30th. The same day that Valerie had been reported missing, this time at an ATM in Midtown Manhattan. The following day, January 31st, a third withdrawal was made in Manhattan and two more, February 1st and February 2nd. In total, $5,350 was taken out of Valerie's account from the time that she disappeared to within days of her body being found. The next day on February 9th, detectives reached out to the company the car was registered to.

It was a car-sharing company that lent vehicles to the public through an app on their phone. And once you sign up and provide proof of a valid driver's license, you can come pick up a car from the company's parking lots all over the city without having to speak to anyone. And these cars are available 24-7. Interesting. Let me circle back to the car because I want to tell you something else before I go into those details. Since there were two different states involved in this case, the FBI assisted with the investigation. Now they had been back to Valerie's apartment trying to find anything of evidentiary value. Now it seemed clear that a struggle had occurred there.

Despite there not being a bunch of blood present, there was still blood. As they mentioned in at least three locations, two in her bedroom and one in the bathroom. Now it seemed as though somehow the perpetrator got into her basement unit, and something happened in Valerie's room on her bed. And then perhaps the killer cleaned up and cleaned himself in the bathroom. They collected various items, including some of Valerie's sketches of different people,

hoping that all of them could be identified and rolled out, specifically any men that she had drawn portraits of, because that would mean the person came over, usually sat in her apartment, and they wanted to just rule everybody out. It was kind of like having composite sketches of a bunch of different people right there in her apartment. They used Valerie's social media accounts

to match most of the portraits to pictures on her friends list, profiles of people that she knew. But there was one portrait of a guy that they could not match to any of the people Valerie was following at the time. Now, this piece of evidence and the car connection were being uncovered at the same time. The rental car company gave detectives the name of the individual who retrieved the black Honda CRV on January 28th, which was then returned the 29th. So in the time frame in which Valerie had disappeared. His name is Javier Enrique de Silva Rojas and his drive and his driver's license information, including his flushing apartment building address, which was close to the rental car lot, was given to detectives.

They pull CCTV from the building, they scrub through January 28th, and they spot Javier on camera at 10.50 p.m. leaving, and he's wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black pants, black sneakers with a white sole, just like the person seen on the bank footage using Valerie's debit card. They pulled CCTV footage from the car-sharing lot, and it showed the same man retrieving the black Honda CRV at 1055. So it was walking distance from his apartment. Later, more CCTV footage from this apartment building showed Javier returning the next morning at 9.43 a.m.

wearing a different outfit. Now it's a long coat and he was carrying a duffel bag. He returned to the building, left within a few minutes without the duffel bag in hand. When the detectives compared Javier's face to the sketch from Valerie's apartment, It matched. It looked similar. So they pulled up Javier's Instagram account. They started going through all of his photos. And it was an exact match to his profile picture. But he wasn't someone that Valerie was following at the time of her death.

However, there was a photo that appeared to be of Javier and Valerie together in February of 2018 that he posted to his Instagram. But how were they connected? This photo looks like a selfie of both of them. They're in what looks to be a CVS pharmacy location in one of the aisles. And it looks like they're together, friendly, at least friends. I don't know if anything more from this picture. But here is a really good picture of Valerie. You can see her tattoos, her glasses, the cat eye islander I told you about. Well, here's some background information on Javier de Silva.

Just like Valerie, he was 24 years old at the time. And while there wasn't much details about the information on his background, He held dual citizenship in both Portugal where he was born and Venezuela, where he was raised in a middle-class family in the suburban area. He grew up in Caracas, which is the Venezuelan capital, and Javier studied journalism in college at a university in Santa Rosa. And while growing up, he regularly traveled with his family to the United States, but in 2017, he decided to extend one of those visits. He entered the United States on May 8th of 2017 through a visa waiver program. That allows people from certain countries to travel to the U.S. for business or tourism for up to 90 days without obtaining a visa. However, when his allowed time expired on August 5th of 2017, Javier chose not to leave.

So he had been living in the country illegally from that time until the present. He told his friends he never wanted to return to his homeland because it was being run by an autocratic socialist dictator, his words. At the time, Javier came into the U.S., Venezuela was facing severe political and economic instability. The country's economy was collapsing. There were shortages on food and essentials, and there was protests happening in the streets all the time. So Javier wanted to escape this entire situation. When he got to the US, he settled in Flushing, New York,

where he initially worked some odd jobs, finding work at a cleaning company, and eventually switching to working as a barista at a local coffee shop. He loved traveling, he enjoyed nature, and he was passionate about photography. When he wasn't working, he traveled widely across the United States. He posted photos of his visits to New York.

York City, Washington, D.C., and other places to his Instagram account, which did have several thousand followers. In these photos, Javier has long hair, he's got that cropped beard, he kind of looks like the typical urban hipster. And over the years, it appeared from his social media presence that he had several girlfriends, but none of them appeared to be that serious because they would be switched out for the next one. People that were close to him knew him as kind and thoughtful, and one of his friends who went to college with him before he dropped out to move to America said that he even tried to get her cancer treatments out in the U.S. When detectives did run a background check, Javier did not have a criminal record, so they wondered if he had attained her debit card somehow

but not been involved in her murder, or if he was the killer they were looking for. Detectives didn't think this was a coincidence. On February 8th, Javier shared a picture to social media showing off a new Apple laptop and computer monitor. They knew that it appeared that he had been the person in possession of Valerie's debit card. So, hmm, wonder how he got it. those new things. But there had been other suspiciously similar withdrawals from the same account starting back in September of the year before in 2018. So detectives need to know more. So they asked Valerie's family and friends if the name Javier sounds familiar and sure enough, a friend of hers tells detectives that Valerie had met Javier on a dating site and had briefly

had a romantic relationship with him maybe for three months back in 2018. But interestingly, Later, in September, a few months after the breakup, this friend explained Javier texted Valerie out of the blue with an apology because he said he mistakenly used her debit card information that he'd obtained when they were together to withdraw funds from her account. And he felt bad about it and wanted to reimburse her. Valerie then texted a friend and told them to handle the situation because she was not interested in communicating with him.

Clearly, this dude sounds a little sneaky. He's a thief, of course, so it's no wonder Valerie seemed to have enough with him and wanted her friend to correspond and get the reimbursement. She specifically texted this, quote, I don't want to talk to him at all or have anything to do with him, end quote. How do you mistakenly use someone's debit card information that you clearly had either take a picture of or write down? You had to have a record of it somehow. But one thing detectives know is that the deceptive banking behavior is not something new, but Javier having possession of the actual card was something new. and did seem to start the night in question. She wouldn't have willingly given this card to him.

Norma let detectives know she didn't know Javier that well, but she wasn't a big fan of him. She explained that when he and Valerie met on a dating site at the end of 2017, that by January 2018, they had officially started dating. She only met him once or twice, so most of what she knew about him, she heard from her daughter. But she remembered him being very persistent

when it came to asking Valerie to become his girlfriend. She also recalled him being a fan of her. horror movies and he seemed much more interested in Valerie than she was in him. At first, things were in the honeymoon phase and the couple even briefly discussed possibly living together in Valerie's apartment. But ultimately she decided to end the relationship in April of 2018. So just about three months after they got together. She began seeing this manipulative side, this controlling side to him and told him she needed a hiatus. He was very stubborn, he wouldn't take no for an answer when Valerie initially tried to talk to him before the breakup. When it came

to their differences, he was way more interested in them being more serious than a relationship than Valerie was, and it got too much for her. Norma actually referred to it as a tumultuous relationship, especially when he revealed his deceitful nature. When Valerie told him it wasn't going to work out, he guilt-tripped her by lying about his mom having cancer back in Venezuela. And because he was in the country illegally, he couldn't travel home to go see her. So he was trying to make her feel bad for him, so that she wouldn't leave him. And we've seen this in other cases. He wanted to continue the relationship,

and Valerie was a kind soul. She felt deeply empathetic towards him in a situation, and she couldn't bring herself to just leave him and break it off. But a few weeks later, nothing had improved in the relationship, and Valerie decided to end it for good in the beginning of April. And Norma said they found out that his mom was not dying of cancer, and that really raised even more red flags. Valerie realized she needed to distance herself from him,

but Norma said that he wouldn't stop contacting Valerie. He tried texting her and calling her after they broke up. He even sent her a birthday text on April 4th and songs that were meant to express his feelings. But Valerie had no interest in keeping in contact with him, so she stopped responding. And then she blocked him on all social media platforms. He was apparently destroyed for a few months following the breakup.

After that, they were no longer in regular contact at all. Their last known contact was September 13th of 2018, so about five months following the breakup. I briefly mentioned this. Javier texted Valerie admitting that he accidentally used her debit card info and he wanted to pay her back. She texted a guy friend that she didn't want to talk to him, didn't want to have anything to do with him,

and asked if she could use her friend's account to accept the money that he wanted to send her. Following this exchange, Javier seemed to have finally figured out that Valerie was done and no tactics were going to make her take him back. But all of this was more than 12 months earlier. So Norma wondered, what did Javier, have to do with Valerie's murder. She had moved on since then with Justin,

and had been dating him for a while, and Javier was old news. That's of course when they explained the debit card withdrawals. They were happening since Valerie disappeared, and the man on the camera, they were certain was Javier. Was he her killer? They didn't know yet.