Original subtitles

[dark tone]

♪ ♪

[suspenseful music]

- What the hell happened in here?

- Holy cow.

- All homicides are disturbing,

but every detective has worked cases

that are so brutal, it haunts them long after

the suspect is behind bars.

- That's cold-blooded.

- Tonight on "The First 48: Critical Minutes"...

- House of horrors.

- Two men fight for their lives

after being bludgeoned with a hammer.

- That was brutal.

- A triple homicide leaves Dallas detectives

in disbelief.

- He just killed three people

in less than a minute.

- And...

- Yeah. - A homeless man

is severely beaten

and left for dead behind a jailhouse.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

It's not natural to see the things

that a homicide investigators sees on a daily basis.

You look at the news, movies, and TV shows,

and you think you have a great perception

of what happens on a homicide scene,

and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface.

You can't smell a TV.

You can't feel the gore.

Those things impact your life forever.

You can never shut it off.

I still have images of homicides

that I worked from 20 years ago

that I'll never, ever forget.

Regular people cannot even begin to imagine

some of the things that these investigators

have to carry around with them.

♪ ♪

narrator: Tulsa, Oklahoma,

1:21 AM.

A man wakes up to someone beating on his front door.

[sirens wailing]

narrator: Police and EMS find two men

in the living room with severe head trauma.

They're rushed to the hospital,

where doctors fight to save their lives.

♪ ♪

- Do we know anybody's names? - Yeah.

Dustin VanWoudenberg.

narrator: The first victim, found on the couch,

is 30-year-old Dustin VanWoudenberg.

Born and raised in Oklahoma,

He's a loving father to a young son.

The second victim, found on the bed,

is a 22-year-old male.

- And the fifth one is--

- And the suspect's outstanding.

narrator: The fifth person wasn't on the scene

when police arrived.

♪ ♪

- We'll just go back here and see what we can get from both

of these young people.

♪ ♪

- I can't imagine what these two people

have witnessed tonight.

It must have been horrible.

- Who all lives in the house?

- The owner.

narrator: She says the other witness owns the house.

- What's he like?

- Oh, he--he's a blessing for all of us,

just letting us all stay there...

- OK. - With no rent, no nothing.

Dusty.

narrator: She says Dustin and the other victim

stay in the living room.

- OK, So this living room kinda doubles for,

like, a bedroom, too? - Yeah. It's really big.

- OK. So, Dusty. Who else?

- Jose.

narrator: A man named Jose

lives in the basement. - OK.

And do you know Jose's last name?

- Jose Diaz.

narrator: Jose just moved in two weeks ago.

- What's he like?

- Quiet.

- Tell me kinda what you know about tonight.

- I got home about 8:30.

Nobody was there when I got home.

Took a shower, went to sleep.

Heard TPD come in the house and sat there like,

what's going on?

Opened the door, and he's like,

"Where's the guy that did this? And I start crying

'cause Dusty's sitting there.

He's laying on the couch.

♪ ♪

He's just bleeding.

I don't know what happened.

- I'm sorry that you had to see all of that, OK?

♪ ♪

All right, dude.

Tell me what happened tonight.

narrator: He says a few hours before the attack, Jose,

AKA, Bones, drove him and the victims

to Dustin's brother's house to pick up some tools.

narrator: Dustin and the other victim fell asleep

while he and Jose were cooking and drinking.

narrator: He says Jose claimed the tools they picked up

were taken from his family.

- Where'd he hit 'em?

- What did you do?

- When he was talking about that stuff belonging

to his family, that you guys picked up from Dustin,

was he acting, like, pissed off that--

- OK.

You get the feeling in any way that the tools

may have been stolen?

- And what's he like normally?

- OK.

Be patient, and I'll be right back with you, OK?

♪ ♪

Two young men might end up dead over nothing

because somebody flipped a switch in a drunken state.

I don't know. This is--it's different.

It's different. Ted Bundy-like, brutally beating

two people for nothing.

♪ ♪

Here we go, right here. Boom.

narrator: 30-year-old Jose Diaz

has no history of violence.

- 56145.

Goes by the name of Bones.

[phone ringing] narrator: Then...

- Homicide. White.

- She was thinking about stuff,

and this--this stuff came to her mind.

narrator: White gets a call from the officer

who drove the female witness home.

- There's an abandoned house about a street

behind where this occurred.

And he's talked about going there before

if something ever happened.

- OK.

- And I noticed there was a window open.

And she said that that window wasn't open the other day.

So there's a good possibility he might be there.

- OK. That's good stuff. I like it.

Thanks, bro. - OK.

- All right. Bye.

Well, let's go--just go out there right quick.

[intense music]

♪ ♪

- Tulsa Police.

Have your hands up.

- All right, this is clear.

- He's not here.

- Shall we go to the scene? - Yeah.

- We're gonna head to the house where this happened.

♪ ♪

What the hell happened in here?

Holy cow.

To do that kind of damage to somebody,

you're swinging with purpose.

- House of horrors.

♪ ♪

narrator: In the basement, where Jose has been living...

- Well, this is kind of spooky down here.

Does he sleep on that?

- That's the only thing I saw down here.

That's the only place he could be.

- Man.

I couldn't imagine living down here.

Is there a hammer?

- We haven't found it.

- I think he took it with him.

- Yeah, I think he's probably fairly close

unless he got a ride because his truck's

still in the driveway.

♪ ♪

- I'm gonna send this arrest affidavit through.

And we'll put it out to the media,

so people will be on the lookout for him.

- Someone who snaps at a moment's notice

is really scary because he could go out

and do this to somebody else.

♪ ♪

- Let's run by the hospital.

♪ ♪

- I mean, they're still in some really bad shape.

One was going to surgery as we speak.

The other one is still unconscious.

- I am amazed that these young men are alive.

♪ ♪

- It appears that they thought death was inevitable.

They thought the injuries to the two victims

were so substantial that it was probably

gonna be impossible for them to survive.

So they felt that it would probably be best

to get homicide involved earlier than later.

It doesn't matter whether the victim dies or lives.

You still have to deal with all the things

associated with that case.

And it's not always that easy to dismiss from your mind.

It stays with you forever.

- Before coming to the police department 18 years ago,

I worked 10 years in the medical field

as a surgical tech.

Been on about 4,500 or 5,000 surgeries.

And I've seen a lot of death and destruction.

You just don't see too many people

that have this type of an injury

even make it to an operating room.

♪ ♪

narrator: The next day,

with Jose still on the loose,

White searches social media for a lead...

- Here we go.

This is Corinna. That's his ex.

narrator: And finds Jose's ex-girlfriend.

- These are Jose's kids, right here.

narrator: Jose has two young children with Corinna.

- I've got her phone number here.

It looks like that she works at a restaurant in Bixby.

♪ ♪

- Hi.

Do you know what happened?

- Yes.

- Where can I find him?

Have you talked to him?

- I haven't spoken to him since

the Monday after Father's Day.

narrator: Corinna says she last spoke to Jose

two months ago by phone.

- OK. Does he have a phone number?

- Yes.

I don't know if it's still working.

- Sure.

918-- - Uh-huh.

narrator: She gives White Jose's cell phone number.

- What do you know that happened?

- He took a hammer to two men asleep.

- They're clinging to life.

- That's the reason why I left him.

I have back issues now because he would throw me up

against the wall to take the keys, and take my money,

and take off for the entire weekend.

He drinks too much and does too many drugs.

- What's he get like when he drinks?

- Crazy.

- Well, if you happen to hear anything, dear, just

give me a call any time, OK?

And sorry you're having to deal with this.

And-- - It--it sucks.

I had to tell my kids before they saw on TV.

- Yeah. I'll tell you what,

it's--it was a bad situation.

All right. Nice meeting you.

♪ ♪

narrator: A few days later...

- All right. Bye.

Jose Diaz was arrested.

narrator: The warrants squad learned

Jose was making calls from Carthage, Missouri,

130 miles northeast of Tulsa.

♪ ♪

- OK. Basically, I want to talk to you about that incident

that happened down there in Tulsa.

- Yeah, I don't remember what happened.

♪ ♪

I was doing a lot of drugs, a lot of drinking.

I don't remember anything.

- Let me just be real with you, because we drove

a long ways to come up here. - I know.

- And we really wanted to give you

an opportunity to basically show that you have a heart.

- I mean, I-- - Let me tell you what you did.

You have a couple of warrants for assault

with a deadly weapon.

You're lucky it's not for murder.

I mean, honestly, neither one of these two guys

that were assaulted have died, which is excellent.

- I don't remember it.

- That's excellent because I'm telling you

they both got hit in the head with a sledgehammer

that you swung at 'em.

- Are you suffering from any sort of mental illness?

- What kind of drugs have you been doing?

That might explain some of this.

- Meth?

- [laughs] Come on, dude.

- OK.

- Thanks for your time. - Yeah.

- OK.

♪ ♪

- Definitely one for the books, man.

- It's sad.

- You know, I kind of get these cases a little bit

when somebody's been doing some bad stuff,

and you know, there's a risk to it.

But when somebody's sleeping in their bed,

they're not doing anything to anybody, that's brutal.

And I don't-- I don't understand it.

narrator: Dallas, Texas,

4:48 AM.

Just north of downtown, in a small strip mall parking lot,

a newspaper delivery man makes a shocking discovery.

narrator: Patrol responds. In a parking lot

in front of a nightclub,

they find three people all dead.

♪ ♪

- All I know is that we have three victims.

And this will be my first triple.

It's something that doesn't happen very often.

[radio chatter]

- We have three people shot and killed.

It's almost execution-style.

narrator: The victims are 22-year-old Claudia Balderas,

a mother of three,

29-year-old Alfredo Alonso, a father of one,

and 27-year-old Francisco Martinez.

All three were close friends.

- No witnesses either? - No.

narrator: A camera from a convenience store

next to the nightclub faces the parking lot.

The owner is on his way to the scene.

- Hopefully, it has a wider angle than it looks.

Whoever did this to do it in the middle of the parking lot

where people driving by can see it happening,

it's definitely over something very personal.

♪ ♪

- Hold on. Right there.

♪ ♪

The woman in the black and white dress fighting

is our female victim.

- That's right in front of the club next door.

narrator: A pregnant woman in a purple shirt

tries to break up the fight.

- The guy in the black shirt is trying

to keep that pregnant girl from getting into the fight.

narrator: Then another man with a gun walks up to him

and shoots him in the head.

The gunman then shoots another man in the chest.

- He just shot him point blank.

narrator: Next, the gunman separates

the two women fighting.

He shoots the female victim in the face and walks away.

- Wait.

The second victim is still alive.

- He's reaching for his phone. - He's reaching for his phone.

- He's trying to call 911.

narrator: The gunman returns

and shoots the surviving victim

in the back of the head

then flees on foot.

- That's cold-blooded.

- I haven't seen a video like that.

He just killed three people in less than a minute.

narrator: The pregnant woman

gets into a gray pickup truck...

♪ ♪

and speeds away.

- Triple homicides are not common.

Being a homicide investigator, sadly to say,

you get used to working homicides.

But not every day do you deal with

a double or certainly not a triple homicide.

What happened to make this person kill three people?

The dynamics of it is different.

The approach to it is different.

The sense of urgency is different.

It's difficult to describe, but it's just a different feeling.

- Yeah.

narrator: Detectives learned from the store owner

that the pregnant woman in the video owns the club next door.

- Oh, is she? OK. - Yeah.

narrator: He also claims that the shooter is her boyfriend

and he owns the gray pickup truck that she left in.

- We got a name and an address.

I think we can drive by in the Impala real fast.

- Let's go do it. - And then that boyfriend,

Truck is there, then we'll go from that.

♪ ♪

narrator: Tabor and Detective Esteban Montenegro

head out to the pregnant woman's home

a few blocks away to see if the gunman's

gray pickup truck is there.

- Very, very close.

♪ ♪

- Don't get too close to him. You know, he's crazy.

- Sarge, we're behind this truck that has similarities

to the one that was there.

Send one of those officers to catch up to us, please.

It is occupied,

and they got two females in there and a male driver.

- He just leaned forward and to the right.

- Did he? - Yeah.

Be careful.

♪ ♪

- Stay off of him, though.

[phone ringing]

- Hello?

Yeah, we're passing Inglewood on Maple.

- He's speeding up. - Yeah.

He's starting to speed up now.

♪ ♪

Stay off of him.

- I got it.

♪ ♪

[siren wailing]

♪ ♪

- Hands up.

- That's not gonna be him.

♪ ♪

Man, it looks just like that truck

on the video with the wheels.

He came right off their street. - Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪

- Oh, there's a-- that's a pregnant girl.

- OK.

narrator: As they pass by, they see the pregnant woman

getting into a white van.

- Hey. Y'all go ahead.

There's a pregnant female coming out of the front door.

[siren wailing]

narrator: Tabor calls in patrol.

♪ ♪

And the white van is pulled over.

♪ ♪

- You speak English?

Is she the-- - [speaking Spanish]

- Where does she work?

narrator: The woman says her boyfriend's name

is Rigoberto Hernandez.

♪ ♪

- Does she know where he is?

narrator: She claims she has no idea where he is.

- Yeah, I'm gonna need her to start talking to you

as quick as possible.

- Well, he definitely looks like the guy

from the surveillance video.

♪ ♪

narrator: 45-year-old Rigoberto Hernandez

is an El Salvador national.

He has no criminal record.

- You know, it's strange that a guy with no violent history

will go out and kill three people.

narrator: Detective Esteban Montenegro goes in to question

Rigoberto's girlfriend.

narrator: She says there were a few regulars

and an employee in the club when she was closing.

narrator: She claims when she answered the door,

two men and a woman tried to rob her at gunpoint.

narrator: She says people inside came to her defense.

- Monte's asking her, who is it?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

narrator: Montenegro tells her that the murders

were caught on surveillance video.

♪ ♪

- Yes!

[phone line trilling]

narrator: Detective Esteban Montenegro

has the woman call Rigoberto.

♪ ♪

- I think self-defense is probably the most commonly

and misunderstood, misinterpreted reason

for committing a homicide.

You have to be able to prove that your life was in danger.

I think people give self-serving statements to say

"I did something bad, but let me tell you

"why I did something bad.

"I was prompted to do this.

"I never would have done this if this person had not

did what they did."

People tend to give self-serving statements

to basically lessen their role or to try

to lessen their charges.

- That's him.

♪ ♪

- He seems so mild mannered.

He's not the type of guy that would execute three people

at the drop of the hat.

- That's just good, good work.

- I don't think we needed his voluntary statement.

With the video, it's enough.

This is one of the few cases that really bothers me.

Just very brutal.

I'm glad it's over.

♪ ♪

- The way our suspect killed the three people,

I mean, he was so quick and deliberate.

He didn't hesitate.

He just did it with little to no consideration

for human life.

It's just one, two, three, and you know, they're all dead.

♪ ♪

narrator: Tulsa, Oklahoma,

7:44 AM at the county jail house.

[siren wailing]

narrator: Patrol arrives and searches behind the jail.

♪ ♪

A few feet from the bike trail,

they find a man dead.

♪ ♪

- Tulsa County was flagged down.

Said there's a body behind the jail.

It's a homeless encampment.

There's all kind of craziness that goes on

in some of these places.

♪ ♪

narrator: 40-year-old Barry Hotzler was born

and raised in Iowa City, Iowa.

According to friends, he had been living under the bridge

for the last few months.

- I think sometimes, people look at homeless people

with a negative light because they don't

necessarily understand it.

You see them standing on the corner asking for money,

and people kinda look at them as an annoyance.

But you don't know the story behind

that person being homeless.

People have lost jobs.

War veterans, when they come back,

and they just cannot fit into regular society again.

A lot of these people have led some very interesting lives.

It's not by their choice that they're homeless.

- Golly, that's a heck of a gash to that head.

- Yeah.

It looks like someone grabbed his arms

and then turned around and place them upon his chest.

narrator: 10 yards from Barry's body...

- And there are some drag marks across the bike path

over to where our victim is.

narrator: Brown follows the blood trail.

♪ ♪

- There's a pool of blood down here.

So there's a major incident that happened here.

♪ ♪

- That can be what they used to beat him.

- This is underneath the interstate system right here.

So this is just one of the many bridges

that people are living underneath.

narrator: Patrol has rounded up witnesses

who live under the bridge.

- What is your name?

- And your name, sir?

- OK. So you two are together?

- What is your name, sir?

- Hang tight.

This guy's got blood on his leg.

- Oh, really? - Can we get--

sample that guy's blood off his leg before he wipes it off?

- Yes.

narrator: Michael agrees to have his legs swabbed.

- It doesn't appear that he's got

an injury that is consistent with the blood on his leg.

So he maybe has a little bit more

closer contact to our victim.

narrator: Michael agrees to go downtown along with Buffy,

Derrick, and Derrick's wife.

♪ ♪

- Michael, you consider yourself an honest guy?

- Truthful?

- OK.

Were you under the bridge last night?

- Did you recognize voices?

- So you were there when it happened?

- Well, but there's blood up there by your bunk.

- Yeah.

- But there's a lot of blood up there on the ground.

Blood up there on the ground is not from you.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- What do we got? What's the news?

- The mark on his face, it looked like he could

have been from an impact.

narrator: The team has an update from the ME.

- In addition to the impact wounds,

he was cut quite a bit.

He had stab wounds as if he was close by,

but kind of backing up when he got stabbed.

- The ME counted seven stab wounds.

- If he's beaten, stabbed, and dragged from there,

surely, somebody had to see something.

Derrick, last night, there was some kind of incident there

in the camp area, correct?

- There was a fight. Yeah. - OK.

And was Barry one of the participants in this fight?

- The voice sounded like his.

It was dark out.

Me and my wife, we laid down, and we start hearing fighting.

I look to see.

I see two shapes on the side swinging,

like, sticks or something.

And then they walk up and roll down the hill.

She started getting up to look.

I said "No. Lay down."

And I laid down.

And I didn't wanna see any more.

- OK.

Did you hear any voices other than Barry's?

♪ ♪

- Yeah, I heard another guy hollering, "Get off.

"Get off. Get off.

"I'm not a bitch. Don't call me a bitch.

[bleep] you, you piece of [bleep]."

- OK.

Did you recognize the other voice?

- I didn't recognize the other voice.

- They started not too far from where

you guys were laying, right?

- The fight was on the embankment by our rack, yeah.

- And you didn't see the other guy?

- No. I didn't wanna see anymore.

I mean, I've been to prison.

I know what it is about if somebody's getting in a fight,

you don't pay attention.

- [sighs]

- This is beginning to suck.

They have to live out there on the streets.

They are afraid of retaliation.

The rule out there is you don't talk.

♪ ♪

What happened, dude?

- All I know is I was getting hit by a freaking lead pipe.

And that was it.

- Who was hitting you?

- I have no idea.

- You have no idea?

- You want-- you can see.

- OK. So what started it?

- Next thing I know, I was getting hit

with a freaking lead pipe.

- So where were you guys on the bike path,

or where you up by your little cubbyhole or what?

- On my rack.

narrator: He says the fight began by his bunk

at the top of the embankment.

- We started going at it.

He'd come back at me with the [bleep] pipe again.

- And what else?

- When I got up, I fought back in self-defense.

- I mean, did you pick up something and defend yourself?

- Mm-hmm. - What'd you pick up?

- I think a stick or something.

When he swung at me, I swung back.

- Then what?

♪ ♪

- I blacked out.

I don't know what happened at the end.

- OK. Hang tight, man.

♪ ♪

- I would like for you to be honest with us

about what happened last night.

- I had heard Cherokee tell--

I don't remember what the guy's name is that died--

that he was gonna beat him up--

narrator: She says moments later, a fight erupted.

- And then Cherokee started yelling for Loki

to come and help him.

♪ ♪

'Cause I guess the other man had grabbed a pole

or a stick or something.

- OK. Loki come down and help him?

- Yes. Loki pulled him off of him.

narrator: She says Cherokee's friend,

Loki, overpowered Barry.

- OK. So what happens next?

- I saw him hit him once, and then I turned back around.

And then I come back down, and they're dragging.

♪ ♪

- Who's they?

- Hersheys and Loki.

- Describe Hershey.

- How well do you know Loki?

- Loki is an ex.

- But where did he stay at?

narrator: She says Loki and his wife

share the first bunk under the bridge.

- Summer, hang tight.

- Summer's saying Loki lives in the first stall.

Well, we talked to the people that live in the first stall.

- Where are you staying, Derrick?

- With my wife. - OK.

- So you two are together?

- Yeah.

- So if Loki is living there,

Loki is Derrick.

♪ ♪

- Derrick Mathes.

- Yeah.

- Summer described Hershey as a light-skinned Black male,

and I do believe that's probably gonna be Michael.

♪ ♪

As it turns out, we needed Michael again.

And we found him in the same motel room

with Loki and the girl.

We just need to hear from you the truth.

So take me through what happened

up on under the bridge.

♪ ♪

- Do you who did have involvement in the stabbing?

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

- Loki? Who's Loki?

♪ ♪

- Derrick.

So in the last 12 hours, have you heard

who Barry was fighting?

- I heard rumor that it was Cherokee.

- Dude, I've talked to Cherokee,

and we know the story, OK?

Just tell the stinking story of what happened.

- Yeah. Him and Cherokee were fighting.

When they rolled down the hill,

I told her, pay no more attention,

and we rolled back over.

- Here's the deal.

I actually have a witness that says

they saw you help Cherokee get that old boy off him.

- Who the hell told you that [bleep]?

- Anything you want change your story on before I get up

and walk out of here?

- No.

- Stay there for me.

- What, am I under arrest? - Well, you aren't free to go.

♪ ♪

There was a fight. And during the fight,

Cherokee kinda gets the laundry beat off of him

by the victim.

You have a right to defend yourself.

It was a mutual combat type situation until Derrick

interjected himself.

He actually came down from the hill,

stabbed our victim multiple times.

So he's going to jail for first-degree murder.

♪ ♪

- We often say we get used to it,

but do you ever really get used to seeing

the devastation of death, the devastation of homicide?

Do you ever get used to sitting across the table

talking to people that can commit these type of crimes?

Those types of things can help,

but have an adverse effect on your mental health.

♪ ♪