[Narrator] A hunter in Hill Country
stumbles upon a shocking scene.
She was nude and there was a bag over her head.
[Tommy] The first thing that came in my mind
was being so close to the border,
you know, there was cartel.
[Narrator] Investigators' antennas quickly go up.
His first comment was that he did not kill her.
There's something suspicious about him.
[Narrator] But an unexpected twist
reveals a decades-old romance.
It was during high school that she fell in love with her.
They kept coming back to each other.
[Narrator] Behind the devotion,
investigators find a single-minded killer
with a deadly plan.
In 2019, the technology to really take
a deep dive into these phones had advanced.
[Erin] I was able to rebuild the webpages,
deleted text messages, phone calls.
The house of cards started to collapse.
[theme music]
[Narrator] A hundred miles from San Antonio,
Edwards County, Texas is worlds away from city life.
[Dorian] It's very, very sparsely populated open land.
Sagebrush, desert, really out in the middle of nowhere.
And it's mainly, you know, ranchers
and, and hunting leases.
[Narrator] Labor Day weekend, 2012.
On the afternoon of September 2nd,
an emergency call comes in to
the Edwards County Sheriff's Department.
The sheriff's department received a 911 call
from some guys that were out at a hunting lease.
[Mark] This is basically a big ranch
that was split up into multiple tracts of land
for the purpose of hunting.
[Narrator] The caller, 45-year-old Mark Bauer,
makes a frantic report.
[Mark] One of my guests, Tommy,
went to go check all our pig traps
that we had set on our place.
The next thing I know, he came back to camp and he said,
there's a, there's a dead body up there.
So I got my cell phone,
and I called it in to the sheriff's department.
And they told us to just hang tight at camp
and the sheriff would come out.
[Dorian] The first responders were
the Edwards County Sheriff's Department,
along with the Texas Rangers.
[Narrator] Officials find Mark and the other two hunters,
30-year-old Tommy Darity and 38-year-old Troy Ryder.
[Mark] As soon as they pulled in,
they said, who all has been up there?
And Troy said he was up there, and my guest, Tommy.
[Tommy] When the sheriff got to the camp,
they asked general questions if I, if I saw anything
out of the ordinary up there.
At the time, I was still in shock.
[Mark] They ask us to take him up there to show him.
So we went up, all the way up to where the body was.
[Tommy] The body was just off the dirt road,
and it was, it was right there in the, in the bar ditch area.
There was a woman that was found that was nude, um,
there was a bag over her head.
They said, okay, y'all can all go back to your camp.
We'll come see y'all when we're done up here.
[Narrator] Investigators carefully remove the plastic ba
from the victim's head.
It was clear that she had been shot.
The gunshot wound was to the back of her head.
The blood had not coagulated yet, and that suggested that
the body had not been there for very long.
[Marty] The fact that she was nude
and there was a bag over her head,
it was definitely not a hunting accident.
It was a homicide.
If you're dealing with a naked female,
then there's always gonna be the thought of a sexual assault.
[Narrator] But a new discovery throws
this theory into question.
[Roger] The deputies found the clothing separate from the body
but very near.
Looking at the clothing, it was consistent with somebody
receiving a head wound and, and, uh, bleeding downward.
All the patterns, they matched.
So, whoever shot her took her clothes off after she was shot.
The picture's starting to form how this crime played out
was a planned execution.
[Narrator] With the clothing,
deputies locate a wallet and an Arizona driver's license.
[Roger] They found a wallet with a military ID
with the name of Inez Santa Cruz.
They call it a, uh, presumptive ID at the scene,
because the picture looks like her.
[Narrator] Investigators turn the victim's body over
to the medical examiner for an official autopsy.
Then, they head back to the cam
to get more information from the three hunters.
[Tommy] This is all privately owned land.
The main road leads you into your property.
That's where you would have the campground.
These men brought out their four wheelers, their guns.
They had set hog traps.
They were out there just boys being boys.
They were all separated and interviewed individually.
[Narrator] Tommy Darity explains
that he and Mark were at the camp for the holiday weekend.
The evening before,
things were winding down when Troy Ryder,
a guest at a neighboring camp, drove up around 7PM.
[Mark] I realized it was Troy, who I had met twice before,
because he's been a guest of another property owner
out there.
He said, well, he was just out driving.
And when we're on the ranch, common courtesy,
anybody that shows up, we offer them a beer, a Coke, a soda,
whatever, uh, welcome to hang out with us, eat dinner with us.
That's just the way we are.
[Narrator] Dinner turned into a raucous night of partying.
I was the only sober one there. I don't, I don't drink.
They were pretty hammered.
[Narrator] The party wrapped up around 3 AM.
[Tommy] Troy wanted to leave.
He had a lot of stuff to do.
And he was gonna to stay at his friend's property
about a mile or so away from, uh, Mark Bauer's property.
And Mark Bauer told me to grab his keys
so he doesn't drive drunk.
[Narrator] Troy relented and agreed to stay the night.
He slept in his Suburban.
The next morning, I guess about 8:00, maybe, he got up.
I gave him his keys back, he left.
And then I want to say about an hour after he left,
I decided to go see if he made it to his camp okay.
I got up to his property.
That's when I kind of crested the hill and I saw the Suburban.
[Narrator] According to Tommy,
Troy was outside his vehicle looking at
something on the ground.
As I got closer on the ATV, I could tell that it was a body.
I saw him right outside of his vehicle, looking down.
The first thing that came in my mind was
being so close to the border, you know, there was cartel.
So, I kind of panicked and told Troy,
jump on the back of my ATV.
I said it about two or three times, and he wasn't moving.
So, I made the decision to get out of there
as quick as possible.
I went back to our camp, Mark Bauer's property,
and told him that I found a dead body.
[Mark] I called it in to the sheriff's department,
and Troy came in his Suburban after that back to camp.
[Narrator] When investigators speak with Troy,
they ask if he knows anyone by the name of Inez.
[Dorian] Mr. Ryder said that he did not know Inez.
He had just been out shooting,
and just happened to see this body out in the desert.
[Narrator] But it's what Troy says next
that strikes detectives as odd.
[Marty] He kept saying that he, he did not kill her,
which I don't think anybody necessarily asked him that.
[Narrator] After Troy's interview,
Tommy pulls one of the investigators aside.
[Tommy] I explained to him that I was listening to the comments
that Troy was saying to the sheriff.
Everything that he was saying was just a little bit off.
Talking about how she was laying.
He just was not answering the questions correctly.
[Roger] He was probably the most nervous of the group,
to the point where at some point he had to go and get some beer
to calm his nerves after the interviews.
We sat around there, kind of still in shock of
what was going on.
There was a lot of what if's.
I know that I slept with my handgun
under my pillow that night.
[Narrator] Coming up--
disturbing details from the autopsy.
The picture's starting to form
how this was a planned execution.
[Narrator] A grieving sister shares a concern.
[Erica] He showed up at my sister's,
and he said, I just wanted to see you.
[Narrator] Texas authorities are investigating the shooting deat
of a woman suspected to be 27-year-old Inez Santa Cruz.
[Dorian] They did interview everybody at the scene,
and they all denied ever meeting Inez.
[Narrator] After the witness interviews,
investigators get word
that the autopsy confirmed the ID as Inez.
The cause of death was two gunshot wounds
to the back of the head.
It suggests she was shot in cold blood
while she was facing away from the shooter.
[gunshots]
[Narrator] The toxicology report reveals another clue.
In Inez's system was benzodiazepine.
Taken properly in low doses, it's an anti-anxiety medication.
But in very high doses, it puts somebody to sleep,
and a very very hard sleep to the point of being unconscious.
[Narrator] With Inez positively ID'd as the victim,
Texas investigators must now notify her family in Arizona.
[Erica] About six something in the morning,
I got a knock on the door. It's an officer.
And his words were, did Inez Santa Cruz live here?
I said, she does.
And then he gives me the news.
You know, we, we found your sister in a rural area.
And I'm like, what do you mean?
I'm like, what happened? Where's Rosa?
And he looks at me, and he takes out his notepad,
and he's like what do you mean?
[Narrator] Erica says she thought Inez
was with her childhood friend, Rosa Medina.
[Erica] I told him Inez is out there
'cause she had an event to attend with Rosa.
[Dorian] Inez's sister said
that she had driven Inez to the airport
on Saturday, September 1st of 2012.
[Narrator] Erica says she didn't hear from her again,
but had planned to pick Inez up from the airport
in a couple of days.
My sister, you know, was found dead.
And I'm like, was there a shooting?
Like, what happened?
What is going on?
[Narrator] Inez Santa Cruz was born on February 13, 1985
in Nogales, Arizona.
[Letty] Inez and her sister were two peas in a pod.
They thought they were twins. I had them very close together.
[Erica] I am the oldest.
She was the middle child,
and three, four years older than my brother.
[Corina] Inez was a natural athlete.
Whatever they put her to play, she would play,
and she would play it good.
[Narrator] In high school, Inez excelled at basketball
and bonded with her teammates, especially Rosa Medina.
[Letty] Rosa, I met her in high school.
I really loved her.
She was a nice little girl, respected us very much.
[Narrator] When Inez's teammate Rosa had issues at home,
the Santa Cruz family welcomed her into theirs with open arms.
She was just part of the group that hung out with my sister,
and she lived with us for a while.
[Narrator] Eventually, the friendship
between Inez and Rosa
blossomed into romance.
It was during high school that Rosa fell in love with Inez.
I would bluntly say, Rosa, do you like Inez?
And she said, of course I like her!
I love her!
[Narrator] But by the end of high school,
the relationship had shifted back to friendship.
They tried it out, and it just didn't work out.
But my sister was one of those who, you know,
I'm always here for you if you, you know, ever need anything.
[Narrator] By the fall of 2012,
Inez was looking to the next chapter--nursing school.
[Letty] That was her plan.
We were gonna go together.
I was gonna try and finish my RN,
and then she was gonna do her anesthesiology.
[Narrator] With her eyes on a career, Inez joined the Navy.
[Letty] Inez was stationed all over the place.
She'd get these awards, and I found them and I'd go,
why didn't you tell me?
You know, she never bragged about anything.
[Erica] After she got out of the Navy,
my sister got a amazing job at UMC.
She was a surgical tech there, so she was super excited.
But all of that changes on September 2, 2012,
when Inez is found dead
in a remote corner of Edwards County, Texas.
[Roger] We found out that she was supposedly
flying into San Antonio on the 1st of September
to visit her friend, Rosa Medina.
[Narrator] Born in Mexico in 1987,
Rosa moved to the US before starting grade school.
Unlike Inez, Rosa's home life was anything but stable.
Her mother had gotten pregnant at a young age,
and she raised her in, in Arizona.
She was kind of a handful growing up.
She said she had nowhere to go.
So, she stayed with us for a good while.
[Narrator] Following graduation in 2003,
Rosa moved to Texas for a fresh start with family.
[Letty] She just said she didn't like her mom.
She only liked her grandma.
So she had to go back to Texas
to where she was living with her grandma.
[Narrator] Though their romance didn't pan out,
Rosa and Inez stayed in touch over the years.
[Dorian] In Texas, eventually Rosa Medina had children.
But even when Rosa was in other relationships,
she didn't want Inez to be with other people.
I think Rosa always wanted something more.
But the person my sister is,
it wasn't like, oh my God, you like me,
we gotta cut off this relationship.
It was, no, like, we, you know, we can be friends.
[Letty] Rosa was living a normal life,
posting pictures on Facebook of her with her daughters,
and she was doing photography.
That was her job.
[Narrator] In late August 2012,
Rosa told Inez that she had booked a job
photographing a wedding.
Inez said that she would come babysit the children
while Rosa shot the wedding.
[Narrator] But on September 2nd, the weekend of the event,
Inez's body was found in a remote area
of Edwards County, Texas.
At that point, I just thought, did she suffer?
Like, like, what happened?
Where's Rosa?
Maybe there was an accident or something.
Like, I didn't, my mind was just going crazy.
[Narrator] Rosa's safety isn't the only thing
called into question.
Investigators also wonder
how Inez ended up in Edwards County--
4 hours away from Midland.
It was like someone had just dropped her out of the sky
and she landed, which kind of just didn't make sense.
[Narrator] When asked who might have been at odds with Inez,
Erica says there's only one person who comes to mind--
Marty Chavez.
Marty Chavez was in the Navy as well, and he was sweet on Inez.
[Narrator] The two became close while they were stationed
at the same Naval base.
I don't know if they actually dated
or if they tried something,
but Marty was in love with my sister.
I don't know exactly what she felt or what he would tell her.
There was a couple times he showed up at my sister's like,
"What are you doing here?
Like, I told you I was busy this weekend."
He said, "I just wanted to see you".
She's like, "Yeah, but I said no."
[Narrator] Coming up--
a romantic entanglement gets complicated.
[Narrator] And chilling footage surfaces
of Inez's final hours.
[Marty] It took some convincing to get her
to agree to go with him.
She could tell that something wasn't right.
[Narrator] After finding Inez Santa Cruz
shot to death in a remote Texas hunting camp,
investigators are trying to confirm Rosa Medina's safety
while looking into a new lead gleaned from Inez's family.
[Roger] There was a, uh, man
that was interested in Inez romantically.
We identified him as Marty.
He was gonna be a person who we're gonna have to talk to.
[Narrator] Investigators locate Marty's superiors
in the military.
He was nowhere even in the state of Texas
during the time of the murder, so we quickly eliminated him.
[Narrator] Next, Texas Ranger Roger Dixon
focuses on finding Inez's friend Rosa.
The family gave us the information to contact Rosa.
I called Rosa and she answered.
And I started discussing Inez with her.
I told her about the murder,
and I basically asked her what she knew about it.
She was in tears.
She said that there had been talk of Inez
coming to visit Rosa over Labor Day weekend.
But Inez had lost her debit car
and couldn't get the money to pay for a plane ticket.
Rosa said Inez had told her, hey,
I'm not gonna be able to come.
So a subpoena was issued to Southwest
to, to find out that she was on that flight.
[Narrator] Investigators ask Rosa
to meet them at the Del Rio DPS Office
for an in-person interview.
[Narrator] When asked for her whereabouts
during the time of Inez's murder,
Rosa doesn't hesitate.
Rosa had been at a concert
in San Antonio at the time.
Um, Rosa also provided photographs to law enforcement
showing her and her kids at this concert.
[Narrator] Investigators ask Rosa
if she knows any of the hunters who found Inez's body.
To their surprise, she says yes
She knows Troy Ryder.
In fact, they met and just started dating
about three months earlier.
[Dorian] She said that she had a romantic relationship
with Mr. Ryder.
That she met Mr. Ryder every Saturday
for lunch at the mall.
The way that Rosa responded was,
I don't know why he would have met Inez.
[Narrator] Before she leaves,
investigators ask Rosa if they can take a look at her phone.
You would expect to see a lot of calls and texts messages
between Rosa and Inez, but there were not a lot.
That indicated to law enforcement
that Rosa had deleted some items.
[Narrator] They release Rosa and circle back to Troy Ryder--
the first person to discover Inez's body--
who also happens to be Rosa's boyfriend.
[Roger] I knew that if Inez flew in San Antonio,
there's probably one of only two ways
she could have gotten to that location,
and one of those ways has a border patrol checkpoint.
I, uh, contacted a, a friend of mine there
and sent him a license plate,
and probably within 30 minutes to an hour,
I received several photographs,
and it showed Ryder in his truck with a small female.
Uh, zoomed in, and it looked just like Inez.
[Narrator] On September 7,
investigators pay a visit to Troy's home in San Antonio.
He sticks by the story he gave on the scene,
denying any prior knowledge of Inez.
He does, however, admit to knowing Rosa.
Rosa and Troy had just recently met at the strip club.
He was a client.
[Roger] Rosa was claiming to be a photographer.
I found that she was actually a dancer
at a men's gentleman's club.
[Narrator] Investigators press on.
They confront Troy with the photos
from the border checkpoint.
[Narrator] Troy claims the woman was a hitchhiker.
Though the story is flimsy, it's not enough for an arrest.
Troy is released.
Days later, investigators receive the flight manifest
from the San Antonio airport.
[Dorian] Inez, she was actually on the airplane.
Law enforcement then review video
from San Antonio International Airport.
[Marty] The video showed Inez, then it showed Troy.
It just shows that they were together
prior to her being killed.
That was a huge deal.
It seemed like it took some convincing by Troy
to get her to agree to go with him.
She could tell that something wasn't right.
[Dorian] At this point, law enforcement
had the surveillance video from the airport
and the border patrol checkpoint video showing Mr. Ryder.
[Narrator] Though loose ends remain,
investigators now have enough for an arrest warrant.
On September 13, 2012,
authorities follow Troy to a restaurant
in San Antonio, Texas
and sit down to try and get a confession.
Investigators showed Troy some of the digital evidence they had
at which time he, he shut down on 'em and lawyered up.
Mr. Ryder was charged with capital murder and was facing
either the death penalty or life in prison
without the possibility of parole.
During that time frame, Ranger Lewis
was able to get a search warrant of Ryder's vehicle.
In the search, he seized Troy's gun.
[Narrator] With Troy behind bars, but not talking,
investigators are left with one very important
and unanswered question.
The only connection between Inez and Troy Ryder
in this tragic, senseless killing is Rosa Medina,
and she continued to maintain her innocence.
[Narrator] Almost three months pass.
Then investigators get a phone call from Troy's attorney.
The house of cards for Mr. Ryder started to collapse.
So Troy Ryder was facing potentially the death penalty.
Through negotiations between his attorneys
and the district attorney's office,
he ended up giving a, a full confession.
[Narrator] Coming up--
Troy reveals a wicked plot.
[Narrator] And new accusations bring new questions.
[Narrator] Three months after investigators
arrest 28-year-old Troy Ryder
for the murder of Inez Santa Cruz,
his attorneys reach out to prosecutors.
We got a confession out him, and there was a plea agreement
to keep him from getting the death penalty.
[Narrator] On December 4, 2012, Troy sits down for an interview
He very quickly implicates not only himself,
but also Rosa Medina.
Rosa had approached Troy about killing Inez.
[Narrator] For Troy, there was another,
more enticing reason to help Rosa.
[Narrator] According to Troy, the day before the murder,
he met Rosa at the mall food court
for their weekly lunch date.
[Narrator] Rosa told him the package
contained sleeping pills.
Rosa had another client
who gave Rosa some drugs.
It was benzos.
[Narrator] She told Troy that Inez would be arriving
on a flight to San Antonio later that day,
and together, they came up with a plan.
The plan was for Troy to pick Inez up at the airport.
Rosa instructed Troy to crush these pills up
and to put them in, uh, ice tea.
Rosa knew that Inez liked to drink iced tea.
[Narrator] Trusting that Troy was Rosa's assistant,
Inez accepted the ride and the tea.
[Roger] She passed out, fell asleep.
But when it got to the campsite
she was awake--groggy, but still awake.
[Narrator] Troy told her that Rosa
had stepped out for supplies and would join her later.
He then left Inez alone,
hoping that she would fall asleep and never wake up.
He spends the night drinking, riding four wheelers.
And the next morning, Troy goes back.
He came back to the trailer thinking he would find,
you know, Inez unconscious or dead,
overdosed with the, um, drugs, but found her quite alive.
Her cellphone had died 'cause there's no electricity,
and she was livid.
[Narrator] In order to explain what happened next,
investigators take Troy back to the crime scene.
[Roger] So, Ryder told her, you have to stand on that rock
and point that way and you can get signal.
[gunshot]
They wanted to make it look like the cartel had got her
and raped and killed her, so he took her clothes off.
He also put a trash bag over, uh, Inez's head.
[Narrator] His efforts were interrupted
when hunter Tommy Darity stumbled upon him.
Troy's confession fills in the blanks,
but it isn't enough to arrest Rosa.
Texas law is very clear
in that the statement of a co-actor
in and of itself
is not sufficient to secure a conviction.
[Narrator] Seven months after Inez's body is found,
Troy is convicted of first-degree murder.
The negotiated plea agreement was for 75 years.
Mr. Ryder will not be eligible for parole
until he has served 30 years of that sentence.
[Narrator] For Inez's family, Troy's sentence is bittersweet.
I got pretty sick because they wouldn't arrest her.
I was having faint spells.
I couldn't live thinking that this woman
was living a normal life after what she had done.
[Narrator] But whether or not Rosa will go to jail
isn't all Inez's loved ones struggle with.
They want to know why.
She mentioned to Troy that my sister was gonna blackmail her,
you know, saying she was a stripper, what not.
But in all honesty, my sister could care less.
[Narrator] Was the real motive unrequited love?
Rosa lived in San Antonio
and wanted Inez to move to San Antonio to be with her.
But Inez ended up finding a good job as a scrub nurse
in Tucson, Arizona, where she lived, where her mother lived,
and eventually made the decision not to move to San Antonio.
I think that's what triggered all this,
is that when Inez didn't move, I think it made her mad.
[Narrator] As years pass, Rosa goes on with her life.
She moved on, she got a new job,
she was working as a manager at Home Depot,
she had a live-in partner.
[Narrator] And hard proof of Rosa's involvement
in Inez's murder continues to elude investigators.
But in June 2019, everything changes
when investigators are able to look at old evidence
through a new lens.
The technology to really take a deep dive into these phones
had advanced, and investigators started looking at it some more.
The last analysis of the device was detrimental to the case.
So, it's actually kind of a really cool thing
that technology can be your best friend or your worst enemy
at the end of the day.
[Narrator] Coming up--
will that day finally come?
[Narrator] New technology cracks the case.
It proved that Rosa did know Inez was coming to Texas.
[Narrator] Seven years after the 2012 murder of Inez Santa Cruz,
triggerman Troy Ryder is behind bars.
But the alleged mastermind behind the crime, Rosa Medina,
remains at large.
But new life is brought back to the investigators
when old evidence is examined in a new way.
[Erin] They brought me Rosa's iPhone data
that had been, been given to the Texas Rangers
when they interviewed her initially.
And I was able to rebuild the webpages, deleted text messages
to be able to look at them as you would've seen 'em
in their native format.
[Narrator] The analysis yields
what investigators have been waiting for.
A week before the killings,
Rosa was doing searches for date rape drug.
Slipping a mickey.
How to make untraceable calls.
[Erin] The final thing that we found was a text that said,
"I'm boarding my flight, amor. I'll see you soon."
It had been deleted,
but with the new technology, it was extracted.
That was exceptionally important when it came to showing that,
that Rosa knew Inez was coming in.
[Dorian] By June of 2020,
the case against Rosa Medina
had gotten much, much stronger.
Within a month after we got the last forensic stuff,
we went to arrest her.
[Narrator] On June 29th, 2020,
authorities locate Rosa at her home in San Antonio.
[Marty] When we first made contact with Rosa,
we tried to explain to her
we were trying to finish up the case and close it out.
She was still acting very nice.
[Narrator] At the station, her demeanor changes.
[Erin] She started to get more upset.
She was not willing to, to talk with any of us after that.
[Narrator] Investigators reveal they have a warrant.
[Narrator] Prosecutors are confident in their case,
but there are other factors they must consider.
[Dorian] I believe fully that Ms. Medina
would've been convicted,
but we also have to weigh the wants and the wishes
of the victim's family.
I don't want to go through court.
I don't want to hear all this stuff.
It's not gonna bring my daughter back.
[Narrator] Authorities honor the family's wishes
and approach Rosa with a plea bargain.
She agreed and entered into a negotiated plea bargain
for manslaughter.
I was hoping that during that process, she would, uh,
you know, give a confession in,
in, in return for the leniency.
But she never did.
[Narrator] In April 2022,
Rosa pleads guilty to the reduced charge of manslaughter
and receives an 18-year sentence.
[Marty] I wished that she could have been sentenced longer
than what she got,
but we finally got her arrested and got her convicted.
[Narrator] While it is comforting
that Rosa is finally behind bars,
there is little that can ease
the pain of not understanding why.
[Letty] I wrote her a letter, but she's never responded.
That's all I say, is, why, why?
And I guess I'll go to my grave saying why.
I see the world very temporary, very limited.
I live in the moment, like my daughter taught me.
I'm very proud of the person she was.
[music]