The Phantom

Copy. Got an armed robbery going down right now.

10-4.

I came in, and there's an aggravated robbery.

I was taking a break and eating dinner,

and I got up from my dinner and went to go help.

I saw him, and, er, well, fuck, I gotta go towards him.

He said, "Don't fuck with me. I got a gun".

And he took off to the right.

I saw someone running to the back of the field.

Our headlights were right with him as he was running.

And the cops come from all directions.

We didn't know what street he was on.

I was jumping fences, looking for him.

Five-nine, Five-ten...

Got a male, 5'9".

Dark pants and a white unbuttoned shirt that was kind of flapping.

I could see somebody underneath the truck.

And I begin yelling to the person to freeze, don't move, City Police.

We pulled him out right away and handcuffed him to the back.

Then had him in the back seat of the car.

And had a couple witnesses come up, take a look.

So, I looked inside, he looked back at me,

and I said, "Yeah, that's him".

And that was... that was it.

26-year-old Wanda Lopez was working alone behind the counter,

and while on the phone to a police dispatcher, she was stabbed to death.

Wanda was beautiful.

We were young childhood friends in the neighbourhood.

She was a wonderful girl. Very happy, bubbly.

That was Wanda.

That night, I told her as soon as I get off of work,

I was gonna drive over to see her at Diamond Shamrock.

And as I approached the door, it was bloody.

And when I saw that door bloody, I knew...

my childhood friend had passed.

This precious young lady

had so much.

And that was just totally taken away from her.

I recognised him.

It turned out to be a subject that I had dealt with in the past.

Carlos DeLuna.

He looked at me and he said...

"You ain't got nothing on me.

I'm gonna beat this one like I beat the last one".

It wasn't natural the way he was talking.

He kept repeating, "I know who did it, so let me go. I'll tell you who did it".

"Let me go, let me go, let me go".

Again and again. The same thing over and over.

But none of it made sense.

Corpus Christi.

Texas.

It's a lot more civilised now than it ever was before.

This strip in between the Nueces and the Rio Grande was

kind of a legal no-man's land for a long time.

Little skirmishes back and forth for years.

Battles with the Mexican army.

Cattle and horse wrestling.

Texans would go into Mexico and steal cattle.

The Mexicans would come up here and steal cattle.

This is a really, really dangerous place to live.

It was a very violent place.

But eventually, the thin veneer of civilisation...

improved things.

Law and order and, uh, punishment.

Back then, Corpus was kind of a strange town.

In the '70s and the '80s.

All kinds of crazy shit.

God no.

It's the Wild West.

My anger was that...

that it was a very dangerous place to work, and she was by herself.

Then, you still have a lot of old-school, uh, people, you know,

don't give a shit, and they were... Or...

Or if it involves somebody of colour, they don't give a shit.

That's one less Mexican, you know?

That's the way it was back then.

The customer noticed him outside drinking a beer earlier

and noticed that he also had a knife.

He became suspicious and told Wanda to call the police.

She was on the phone to police when the suspect pulled out a knife.

We may never know why Wanda Lopez was stabbed that night...

The first job in television out of college.

First chance to be a reporter, a news reporter on air.

I was as green as could be, and so it was a huge learning experience for me as well

to be part of it and to sit through this

because, again, it was nothing I'd ever done before.

This was my second home away from the newspaper.

This is where I spent all my time unless I was at the office writing the stories.

The Carlos DeLuna trial was a big deal because it was a capital murder case.

This was a bad situation from the word "go".

Carlos DeLuna, he was facing the death penalty.

I mean, you just can't get any worse than that.

At the time, it was pretty wild.

The DA was pretty aggressive and rewarded aggressiveness.

I wanted to try everything in sight.

So I thought, "I'm getting in on this".

Wanda Lopez.

Oh...

Brings back... a lot of mixed feelings.

A lot of mixed feelings.

"Stab wound one penetrates the 5th intercostal space

in the left chest cavity

and goes almost completely through the lower lobe of the left lung".

"Stab wound two is just at the lower level of the breasts".

"As a result of the two stab wounds,

there is approximately two litres of blood in the left chest cavity".

We asked him about the situation, and then, the more we looked into it,

that was not his manner of...

committing crimes.

He just was not the type to go and pull a knife on somebody and

stab 'em to death.

And, of course, he came up with a story.

He told the fella that drove him to the police station

he didn't do it, but he knew who did. That he would help 'em out.

And, uh, when he got to the police station and they tried to question him,

he shut up.

So what's your reaction to that?

That he was having a panic attack and running his mouth.

And how common was that?

Pretty common.

Ever been scared before?

He was apprehensive, he... was concerned.

I would think, deep down inside, he was scared.

Carlos was always running around in the streets.

My brother Carlos DeLuna, he was out there doing spray paint,

drinking.

Started to hang around with the wrong crowd.

I know he got arrested for several things.

Little penny stuff, you know.

Misdemeanours, I guess.

I was young, you know. I was in my 20s.

I was living in Dallas, and I... I got a call from my mum,

and she told me what happened.

And I said it's another joke, you know? He's always getting into something.

And then the next day he's out walking around, you know?

I really didn't wanna have anything to do with him.

He did a lot of bad things to me.

He stole my truck and he wrecked it, and other things that he did.

Taking my mother's money out of the pocket...

and so on.

I mean, I would try to talk to him, get sense to him, but I mean,

you can only say so much.

He would never, never open up.

You know, it's hard for me to say this, but...

I really didn't care at that time.

Every morning, Carlos would come down this tunnel

and they had these little windows for us to video him.

We would just watch him walk, this long perp walk.

Same little swagger down the hall.

It was our ritual before the trial began.

You go to war with the army you got, not the one you'd like to have.

As true for them as it was for me.

From my standpoint, here we have a case

in which the only evidence is eyewitness evidence.

That's the worst evidence in the world.

Would you state your name for the jury, please.

Kevan Baker. I am a witness.

Mr Baker, I want to take you back to the night of February 4.

What kind of vehicle were you driving?

I was driving a '67 Mercury Cougar.

- Was that your car? - Yes, sir.

Can you tell the jury what you did?

I got out, unlocked my gas cap.

Schiwetz wouldn't sit behind his desk asking the questions.

He was up, he was moving and he was passionate.

He captivated this whole courtroom.

What happened then, Mr Baker?

He was just jerking her as hard as he could.

And then he ran to the east.

Right past the Arsuaga couple.

Which is when he turned and looked at us,

seeing him and being able to identify him.

Steve Schiwetz was very effective. Very effective.

Um, but he had a lot to work with.

Were you on duty at approximately 8:00, 8:30 that night?

Yes.

Spotted somebody under a pickup truck.

When they pulled him out from under the truck,

they found a wad of bills in his front pants pocket totalling $149,

which was about the amount of money that was taken from the cash register

in the robbery of the service station.

And what made it even worse, they had the audio.

It was just horrible.

- Where is he at now? - He's right here.

The biggest thing that happened was the playing of the tape,

which was just chilling and so sad and so compelling.

There was not a cough, there was not a rustle of paper.

Everyone was rapt.

The impact was shocking to them.

They're not used to hearing stuff like that.

The 911 call establishes that there's absolutely no reason

for him to kill her.

According to the tape, she was complying. She was handing over the money.

She just says, "You can have it all", and then he kills her.

But there's a lot of questions,

because, you know, if you keep looking at the evidence...

The blood. If he stabbed her and he's right there next to her,

why is there nothing on his clothing?

DeLuna's pulling her head down like that and he's backing out.

He's not gonna get any blood on his shoes, pants or anywhere else.