HATCHETT: She has a gunshot wound above her left eyebrow.
We felt like she could have
come home and interrupted a burglary.
This was one of our own.
We just couldn't even imagine who would do this to her.
HATCHETT: Laura actually had a history
of volatile relationships.
SAWYER: His wife was demanding why we were
were contacting her husband about a murder.
We were able to discover a photograph
of a female holding a 40-caliber handgun.
HATCHETT: Another red flag is that Brad
said that he didn't hear a gunshot.
[gunshot blasts]
How is that even possible if he was there the whole time?
[siren wailing]
NARRATOR: Every day in North America,
dozens of people are murdered.
The key to solving the toughest of these homicides
lies in the final 24 hours of the victim's life.
To crack the case,
detectives must reconstruct that critical timeline,
the minutes and hours containing evidence that can
help unlock the mystery and catch the killer.
Thirty minutes outside of Dallas, Texas,
Rowlett is a bedroom community on Lake Ray Hubbard.
FREEMAN: People like to move to Rowlett from Dallas with
the convenience of not
being in the big city but not being far away from it either.
HERNANDEZ: It's got that hometown feeling, but you still
have a lot that you can do.
Sporting events, Mavericks, Dallas Cowboys,
Texas Ranger baseball.
HATCHETT: There's Lake Ray Hubbard.
It's a beautiful stretch of water.
It's very calming, very serene.
NARRATOR: But that calm is shattered on November 13th,
2015, at around 8:30 a.m., when a scared Rowlett resident
calls 911.
[phone ringing]
NARRATOR: The neighbor's house is just across
the street from the caller's grandmother's place.
HERNANDEZ: He reports that his grandmother laying in
the kitchen in a pool of blood,
and so we respond.
We're thinking she possibly fell and hit her head in the kitchen.
The fire department advised that they found
a shell casing next to the body in the kitchen,
so they had pulled out, because the scene was not secure.
We searched the residence to
see if there's anybody else anywhere.
NARRATOR: Police find no one alive in their sweep,
and the victim doesn't appear old enough
to be the grandmother of an adult.
FREEMAN: We locate a female victim in the kitchen.
She's lying face-down with a large amount of blood
around her.
We could see what appeared to
be a gunshot wound to the forehead.
We don't observe any signs of life on
the victim and call for detectives to start
the investigation.
NARRATOR: Detective Chris Sawyer of the Rowlett
Police Department is assigned as lead investigator.
SAWYER: When I entered the kitchen,
I saw the female body laying on the floor with her hands
tucked underneath her.
We couldn't really see her face at that point.
I see a shell casing on the floor in the kitchen
next to the female's body,
but I do not see any type of firearm in the immediate area.
NARRATOR: When investigators roll over the victim,
they confirm the woman is not elderly
and find an ID still on her.
SAWYER: As I look at the identification card,
I'm able to see that our victim was one of
our own volunteers, Laura Grillo.
I know Laura through the VIPS,
program which is Volunteer in Public Safety.
I was pretty shocked, because Laura Grillo had been very
involved in the police department in the past
three years.
NARRATOR: 37-year-old Laura Grillo is
the mother of three young children
and the fiancee of another police volunteer,
named John Makris.
This became more personal to us, to see one of
our own volunteers shot and killed inside her own home.
NARRATOR: Police notify Marissa Hatchett,
the assistant D.A. at the Dallas County District
Attorney's Office.
HATCHETT: This was a woman that we've worked closely with.
She's been a very sweet person in this station.
We just couldn't even imagine who would do this to her.
FREEMAN: We observed that Laura is wearing blue jeans,
a black hoodie, and her shoes are off, and they're located
probably 20 feet from her body.
HATCHETT: She has a gunshot wound above her left eyebrow.
Also, we notice that she has
a blunt force wound to her forehead.
That tells us that, immediately after she was shot,
she went straight to the ground.
SAWYER: As we're processing the scene,
we collect the shell casing that was on the floor, and I saw
that it was a 40-caliber shell casing.
That was a little odd to me.
A 40-caliber weapon is very unusual for a civilian.
Usually you see that with police officers.
NARRATOR: After processing the kitchen,
detectives fan out to survey the rest of the house.
SAWYER: I observed a small safe behind
the master bedroom door that was open and empty.
There were several jewelry boxes on the floor.
I also saw a bunch of papers that had been dumped out on to
the bed -- it appeared that somebody
was going through drawers and things of that nature.
We felt like she could have
come home and interrupted a burglary.
FREEMAN: When we found the safe, the door was standing open,
but we found no pry marks anywhere on the safe to make it
appear that it had been tampered with.
The killer clearly was able to access the safe,
either with a code that he already knew or the safe
was unlocked.
Once I checked the rest of the scene,
I did not see any damage to any doors or windows,
no signs of forced entry.
Our first indication at that point is that this was either
somebody that the victim knew
and let into the home or this was somebody that had access to
enter the home.
NARRATOR: Based on their observations, detectives have
an initial theory of what may have occurred.
FREEMAN: Laura came home,
she kicked her shoes off in the kitchen,
and is probably walking towards the bedroom
when she's confronted with her attacker.
As she tries to escape,
she looks over her shoulder, and that's
when the attacker shot her in the forehead.
NARRATOR: Investigators comb the crime scene for
forensic traces left by the shooter.
Using fingerprint powder,
we dust the safe, we dust the doorways, but did
not locate any viable fingerprints on any of
the items dusted.
NARRATOR: When investigators search outside the home,
they find a potential link to the attacker.
We opened one of the trash cans in the driveway.
And we noticed that there are some latex gloves.
NARRATOR: While police are in the driveway,
Laura's distressed fiance, John Makris,
and their four-year-old daughter, Margaret, pull up.
John leaves Margaret in the car while he
rushes over to police.
HATCHETT: And we know John, because he's also
a volunteer police officer with the Rowlett Police Department.
When John arrives, he is pretty frantic.
He keeps asking what happened.
He believes that something happened to Laura, because he
got a phone call from Margaret's school saying that
Laura hadn't come pick her up yet, and she was not answering
his phone calls or texting him back.
So at this point, we have to
inform John that Laura has been murdered,
and he's shocked, he's upset.
He's confused, I mean, he's acting just like
you would expect someone to act
when they learn that their fiancee has been murdered.
We try to get information from John, and we ask
him if there would have been any money in the safe.
He tells us that there's about $9,000 in the safe, and that's
the money that they're using for their upcoming wedding
and for their honeymoon.
Laura was a pillar to the community.
Her murder was devastating, because she touched
so many different people's lives.
NARRATOR: Although the motive appears to be robbery,
investigators still need to rule out other possibilities.
HATCHETT: The medical examiner confirms that there are
no signs of sexual assault
and that Laura died of a single gunshot wound to
her head. -[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: To solve Laura Grillo's murder,
detectives will need to reconstruct
the last 24 hours of her life.
SAWYER: I began canvassing the neighborhood
with other officers for witnesses.
We spoke to a neighbor who said that she saw Laura's van
pulling into her driveway
at about 8:10 that morning, after she had just dropped
the kids off at school.
So now we're putting together the timeline, and we realize
that Laura is killed
somewhere between 8:15 and 11:55 a.m.,
when that 911 call came in.
We also asked the neighbors if they had any security footage
from their homes, which they were able to provide,
but we don't see anything suspicious.
NARRATOR: Because investigators believe
this is a robbery gone wrong,
they need to find the initial 911 caller who lied on
the phone.
One of the first people that we need to talk to is Brad.
Brad had called 911 and reported that
his grandmother was the victim on the kitchen floor.
FREEMAN: Once we got there, we learned that it was Laura.
It raised some suspicion.
NARRATOR: They find Brad and bring him in for questioning.
He told us that he was Laura's brother.
He told us that he lives in the home, that
he was in the house all morning, asleep in his bedroom.
He woke up, he went to go make himself a cup of coffee,
and as he was making his way to the kitchen,
he saw a strange red spot on the floor, and that led him to
discovering a woman's body with blood all around her head.
NARRATOR: It's not just that Brad mistakes his sister
as his grandmother that raises suspicion.
Another red flag that we have is that Brad was
in the house and said that he didn't hear anything.
Not a gunshot, not an argument.
How is that even possible if he was there the whole time?
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: After Rowlett, Texas, police find 37-year-old mother
and volunteer police officer,
Laura Grillo, shot dead in her home,
investigators suspect her brother, Brad, may be involved.
Brad was home when his sister was killed
but told 911 it was his grandmother that was shot.
He also claims that he never heard the gunfire.
SAWYER: Gunshots inside a home are typically pretty loud,
and we were wondering
how could he not hear this if he was in the home?
NARRATOR: Detectives believe that Brad not only heard
the shot but may have pulled the trigger.
[gunshot blasts]
HATCHETT: So as we're interviewing Brad,
he tells us that he is actually deaf in one ear
and suffers extreme hearing loss in his other ear.
SAWYER: So if he is asleep on his good ear,
he's not going to be able to hear anything, even a gunshot.
We also learned that Brad is autistic and caused us
to approach this interview in a little bit different way.
He was upset, he was panicking at that point.
He wasn't sure what was going on.
HATCHETT: And so when he sees a woman
laying down on the floor,
his assumption is that it's his grandmother.
He gets upset and immediately runs out the house.
He had nothing to do with the murder,
and he would never do anything to hurt his sister.
NARRATOR: With the shooter's identity still a mystery,
[gunshot blasts]
detectives ask Brad if he can think of
anyone who may have wanted to hurt his sister.
Brad points investigators to a man named Donald Emmerich,
Laura's ex.
SAWYER: Brad tells us that Donald,
the father of Laura's oldest child, was so abusive to Laura
that she actually asked Brad to
come live with her for protection.
Brad stayed on with Laura even after she became engaged to
John, because John worked long hours,
and Laura wanted somebody there with her and the kids so
that she would continue to feel safe.
SAWYER: We were concerned at that point that
Donald may have some involvement in this.
Investigators always need to look at men
who are involved with female homicide victims.
It's a misconception to think that the violence in
a relationship might end
after there's a breakup.
Oftentimes, it does continue.
So all males that are close to this victim
would be viable suspects.
NARRATOR: After the breakup,
Donald moved out of Texas,
but he continued to harbor a deep grudge against Laura
and resented her engagement to John.
[gunshot blasts]
If Laura's ex-boyfriend, Donald Emmerich, was
so upset by her impending marriage,
could he have come to Rowlett to confront her?
NARRATOR: Detectives do some digging
into Donald Emmerich's background.
SAWYER: We found that he had a substance abuse problem
and issues with drinking and driving,
and he didn't hold a job very long.
It looked like he bounced around quite a bit.
NARRATOR: Investigators track Donald down
almost 1,800 miles away in Cameron Park,
California, and he agrees to an interview.
He talked about his relationship with Laura,
that things were good in the beginning,
and then they started having problems.
Over time,
things ended up going from bad to worse, and they were not in
a good place when Laura got
pregnant with her first child, Charles.
HUNSICKER: Their fights escalated, and they separated.
Laura and Donald did not part on good terms.
NARRATOR: Yet Donald denies he had anything to do with
Laura's death.
HATCHETT: Donald tells us he had been working
in California the few days surrounding Laura's murder
and after.
NARRATOR: Detective Sawyer steps out to check
Donald's alibi.
SAWYER: I was able to speak with Donald's
employer to confirm what he had told me,
and he was, in fact, at work.
NARRATOR: With his alibi confirmed,
detectives rule out Donald Emmerich and fly back to
Texas to hunt for Laura's killer closer to home.
So next, we ask Laura's best friend and her maid of honor,
Heidi Norwood Griffin, who could have done this.
Heidi tells us that Laura actually had a history of
volatile relationships.
NARRATOR: According to Heidi,
one of Laura's volatile relationships was with
her fiance, John Makris.
We learn from Heidi that John is possessive.
When Laura found out that she was pregnant,
John didn't even believe that Margaret was his own
daughter, and he requested that she provide a DNA test.
John also felt that Laura spent too much money.
NARRATOR: Police observed John and Laura to be
a loving couple when they showed up for volunteer work,
but now they take a closer look at John Makris.
John does not have any criminal history.
However, we learned that he does own firearms.
In fact, he had
a few rifles that he kept in a shed behind the house.
NARRATOR: Now investigators wonder if John's concern over
his dead fiancee was all just an act.
Is it possible John's responsible for killing Laura?
[gunshot blasts]
NARRATOR: After the mysterious homicide
of 37-year-old Laura Grillo,
detectives wonder if domestic conflict between
her and her fiance,
John Makris, may have led to her murder.
They summon John to the station for an interview.
We learned from John that Laura had actually moved from
Maryland to Texas about seven years ago,
and about two years after that,
he and Lauren met online while gaming, and they had started
a relationship, and very shortly afterwards, Laura got pregnant
with Margaret.
NARRATOR: John invites Laura and her two previous
children, Charles and Madison, to move in with him.
John tells us that he and Laura
were engaged about seven months before her murder.
Laura had been busy planning for the wedding.
She had gone dress shopping.
She was very excited about their upcoming union.
He tells us that the last time he saw Laura,
right before she was killed,
that they had both left the house
about 7:45.
John tells us that he's in the home remodeling business
and was on his way to work,
and Laura was on her way to drop off the kids.
John left with his mother, who had been
in town from Greece for the wedding,
and he went to a Home Depot located in Dallas,
which is about 30 minutes away from Rowlett.
He met up with his two employees,
Jesus Trevino and James Villeda.
They picked up some supplies.
SAWYER: John tells me that he calls Laura about 8:46 a.m.
that morning, but she did not answer.
After leaving the first Home Depot,
John said that he went to two other Home Depot stores
to pick up more materials and then on to his job site.
At around 11:30 a.m.,
he gets a call from his daughter
Margaret's school asking if someone was going to come pick
her up, because she was still there.
Laura usually picks Margaret up from school,
and Laura is never late.
John said he was so concerned about what was going on that
he left the job site and went to
pick up Margaret from school and came home to find
police officers and paramedics there out in front of his house.
I tell John that I'm gonna find out who's responsible.
NARRATOR: The grieving widower is cooperative, providing police
with his Home Depot receipts, as well as his cellphone.
HATCHETT: We've confirmed that there was an outgoing
call at 8:46 a.m. to Laura,
but Laura did not pick up that call.
This is just as John reported to us.
NARRATOR: For additional corroboration,
John also offers contacts for his workers.
SAWYER: Jesus Trevino had been an employee of John's
for about three years, and James Villeda was
friends with Jesus and had only been working for John for
about three weeks.
NARRATOR: Investigators question the men separately.
They start with the worker
John hired most recently, James Villeda.
DETECTIVE: Okay.
NARRATOR: Both Jesus and James agreed to
let police check their phone records.
We also request GPS warrants for both employees, just to
corroborate their coordinates on the day that Laura
was murdered.
NARRATOR: Detectives also check
parking lot security camera timestamps.
SAWYER: We gathered video surveillance footage
from the Home Depot store in Dallas,
and we found John on the Home Depot footage at about 8:53 a.m.
Then at about 9:43 a.m.,
we see James Villeda and Jesus Trevino on video, helping John
load doors and other materials
into the truck, and then they drive away.
John is seen on the video going back into the store
and purchasing a microwave and leaving the store at about
10 a.m.
NARRATOR: The video evidence is clear.
From 8:15 a.m. until around noon,
the timeframe in which Laura was killed,
John Makris's alibi is airtight.
Investigators rule him out as a suspect.
So at this point, we have to expand to
see what other relationships Laura had that we can uncover.
SAWYER: Laura was very involved with her kids' school,
and Margaret's kindergarten teacher,
she told us about another girl in the class that Margaret was
friends with and said it
appeared to her that this girl's father, Dexter Glowicki,
and Laura also appeared to be friends.
NARRATOR: The teacher tells police
Laura and Dexter meet every day when picking up their kids,
and that their daughters have
play dates at least once a week.
And that's not all.
The kindergarten teacher did mention that Dexter's wife
traveled a lot, and that
gave us some concern that there may be something else
going on here.
STOCKDALE: Their kids apparently know each other,
and they've been on play dates, and, you know,
there is something that's called the proximity effect,
which means the more time we spend with people,
it's correlated with our level of attraction towards them.
So maybe there's an affair, and then maybe there's
an effort to conceal an affair, and that has culminated
in violence.
NARRATOR: Is it possible an illicit lover
killed Laura to protect his marriage
or because of jealousy over Laura's
recent engagement?
We called Dexter, and we asked him to come in for an interview
on November 18th,
which is five days after Laura's murder.
SAWYER: Dexter agreed to come in,
but he showed up on November 17th, unannounced,
totally unexpected, with his wife.
NARRATOR: Detectives have questions for Dexter,
but Dexter's wife has questions of her own.
SAWYER: His wife was demanding answers from us at that point as
to why we were contacting her husband
about a murder investigation.
We explained to Dexter and his wife that, when we talked to
Margaret's kindergarten teacher,
that she mentioned Dexter and Laura would have
play dates with their kids together.
And that was our reason for contacting him to
find out exactly what the extent
of their relationship was.
We asked Dexter if he's ever spoken to Laura on the phone,
and he said if he did, it was only in relations to the girls,
Sophia and Margaret -- his answers are very defensive.
Jessica is adamant that Sophia and Margaret only
had one play date together on October 13th.
That was exactly one month prior to Laura's murder.
HATCHETT: So we start pressuring Dexter,
and we tell him that we have Laura's phone, and we ask him,
are we gonna find any more messages other than that
October 13th play date?
We suggest that there may be
more to Dexter and Laura's relationship.
Jessica becomes very aggressive towards us.
SAWYER: Dexter's wife was so mad and belligerent with us
that we ended the interview pretty quickly.
ARNTFIELD: Dexter's wife talks over him,
tries to seize control, is very dominating,
and police have to wonder is she there to
micromanage what is disclosed?
Certainly, this caught investigators by surprise
and I think prompted them
to look closer at Dexter's role in this case.
NARRATOR: With the couple refusing to cooperate
any further, police secure a warrant
to check their story, as well as Dexter's whereabouts at
the time Laura was killed.
We get Dexter's cellphone records back, and it confirms
exactly what Dexter
and Jessica said, that the only text information was from that
play date on October 13th.
NARRATOR: And Dexter's phone GPS history is clear -- he was
at home after school drop off when Laura was killed.
So at this point, we had to rule him out.
NARRATOR: With all the men closest to Laura
eliminated as suspects,
police are unclear where to turn next.
There's the saying the first 48, that if a suspect isn't
identified in the first 48 hours,
that the likelihood of that case being resolved diminishes
exponentially after that point.
NARRATOR: For detectives, just one loose end remains.
They follow up with cell providers to confirm
the whereabouts of John Makris's oldest employee,
Jesus Trevino, on the day of the murder.
We got records back from Jesus's phone showing that
he was not where he told us he was.
SAWYER: Jesus told us that he was in Dallas all morning.
But the cellphone data showed that Jesus Trevino's cellphone
pinged a tower that was about
a mile north of Laura and John's house at about 8:26 a.m.
on the morning of November 13th.
HATCHETT: This is around the time that we believe Laura
was killed. -[gunshot blasts]
So we start digging into Jesus Trevino's past
a little bit, and we learned that he's
a convicted sex offender,
that he was a deported felon, and he's now back in
the United States illegally.
We know that there are no signs of sexual assault
to Laura, but we also found
the safe in the bedroom empty.
Jesus knew about the upcoming wedding since he was
John's best man,
and maybe Jesus wanted to steal the $9,000 in the safe.
SAWYER: Then Laura came home and interrupted what he was
doing, and that caused him to kill her.
NARRATOR: One week after the murder of Laura Grillo,
Rowlett Police discover that her fiance's employee,
an ex-con, Jesus Trevino,
lied about his whereabouts when Laura was killed.
[gunshot blasts]
He told me that he did not come to Rowlett
the day Laura was murdered, but his phone records
said different.
HATCHETT: Maybe he's stealing something,
like the $9,000 in this safe,
and Laura just happened to come in in the process of this.
SAWYER: We obtained the arrest warrant for Jesus.
We went to his house to look for him, and...
He disappears on us.
We fear that he's fled to Mexico.
NARRATOR: To find him,
police re-interview James,
Jesus's friend and co-worker.
James says he has no idea where Jesus is,
but he does reveal that he and Jesus drove in from Dallas for
work at around 8:15 a.m. on the day of the murder.
That's just 15 minutes before Laura was killed.
HERNANDEZ: James sticks to his story.
So we decide that we're going to ask for
consent to search of his motel room in Dallas,
and James agrees.
While we were searching James's room, we found a small
amount of marijuana, and underneath the bed,
I find a black backpack, and I noticed a change in
James's demeanor.
He stared at it like he was surprised to see it.
And when I asked him whose backpack is that,
he said, "That's not mine. That's Jesus's."
Inside the backpack,
I found latex gloves and two brand-new phones.
It doesn't prove nothing, but it's really odd.
NARRATOR: The gloves aren't just odd.
They're familiar.
The latex gloves appear to be the same kind that
were found in the trash can at John and Laura's house.
So alarms are ringing at this point -- we're very suspicious.
James knows more than what he's letting on to.
And since Jesus already fled,
we don't want the same thing to happen to James.
So we decide to arrest him for the possession of cannabis.
NARRATOR: Even with James behind bars,
he still claims he doesn't know the whereabouts of
his friend, ex-con Jesus Trevino.
Jesus has gone missing on us.
So we really need the public's help on this one,
and we name Jesus as a person of interest.
NARRATOR: Detectives also get a search warrant
for Jesus Trevino's Google records.
We were able to discover quite
a bit of information in his Google account,
one of those things being a photograph of a female
with a bandana over her face holding a 40-caliber handgun.
NARRATOR: It's the same caliber weapon that
was used to kill Laura Grillo.
We're able to identify this woman as Jamie Buffett,
who is an ex-girlfriend of Jesus Trevino.
NARRATOR: But detectives can't find her,
so they call for help from the Texas Rangers.
Texas Rangers were assisting us going through these massive
amount of records that we got back from Google,
and luckily, there was enough information
that we found her up in Colorado.
About five months after Laura's murder,
we were able to meet with Jamie at her home in
Denver, Colorado.
She completely denies being involved with Laura's murder,
but we start questioning Jamie more, and she drops a bombshell.
SAWYER: Jesus told her that he was going to be hired
to kill his boss's wife.
That information to us was huge.
NARRATOR: Jesus' girlfriend doesn't know who made
the proposition or if Jesus did it himself.
So detectives returned to Jesus's accounts to
dig out contacts he made around that time.
We find a photo of a Texas ID of a person named Ramon.
SAWYER: It was odd why Jesus would have
this person's ID card.
So we wanted to talk to this individual
to find out how he knows Jesus Trevino.
NARRATOR: Is it possible Jesus hired Ramon
to kill Laura Grillo,
and then they split the stolen cash from the safe?
NARRATOR: Five months after investigators find mother of
three and police volunteer,
Laura Grillo, shot dead in her kitchen,
Rowlett, Texas, detectives suspect two men
whose motivation was likely stolen cash --
Ramon and Jesus.
HATCHETT: We also had phone records
connecting Ramon and Jesus.
Ramon lives in Mesquite, Texas,
which is about 14 miles away from Rowlett.
Ramon tells us that he used to work with Jesus
for Laura's fiance,
John Makris, in the home remodeling business,
and before we could ask any more questions,
Ramon says, I know why" you're here."
John offered Jesus $9,000 to have Laura killed.
[gunshot blasts]
We are completely shocked.
NARRATOR: But that surprise also raises more questions.
Is Ramon just covering for what he or Jesus
did to Laura to steal $9,000 from her safe?
Or if Ramon's story is true, why would John Makris hire
Jesus to kill Laura,
his fiancee, and the mother of his six-year-old daughter?
SAWYER: At this point, we're searching for motive.
We obtain a search warrant for John Makris's Google records.
HATCHETT: We see an email that Laura sent
John five months before her murder.
NARRATOR: That email reveals why John Makris
may have wanted to kill Laura.
HATCHETT: Laura states that she's tired of John,
they're constantly fighting, and it's time for them to go
her separate ways.
Laura also tells John that if they separate,
she can't guarantee that she'll always stay in Texas.
She may end up leaving and taking the kids with her.
Once we found this email,
we had a follow-up conversation with Laura's
best friend, Heidi.
Heidi told us that several months prior to Laura's murder,
Laura broke off the relationship with John, and he became
very upset.
NARRATOR: Heidi says John feared losing his six-year-old
daughter, Margaret.
SAWYER: John loved Margaret more than anything, and that's what
he wanted to keep -- Laura wanted out of the relationship,
but John didn't want to lose Margaret.
The threat of having Margaret taken away from
him could just put John right over the top.
So this is the motive we feel is behind Laura's death.
It seems probable that John Makris got engaged to
Laura Grillo to keep her from leaving with his daughter.
Then he set up a plan to kill her.
NARRATOR: But it's just a theory unless detectives can prove it.
SAWYER: We looked at the text messages
between John and Jesus that morning.
Once Jesus and James left Dallas that morning,
Jesus's cellphone hit a tower in Mesquite.
John told him, "Don't be late."
Jesus responded, "Okay"
at 7:48 a.m. that morning.
After that point, Jesus turned his cellphone
off while they're still continuing to drive to Rowlett.
NARRATOR: Police now believe that Jesus
and James were on their way
to kill Laura in her home at around 8:20 that morning.
Once the murder is done, James and Jesus leave Rowlett.
Jesus turns his phone back on to send John a message
to tell him that it's done.
That's when Jesus's cellphone hit the tower in Rowlett, about
a mile north of Laura's house, and that was about 8:26 a.m.
[phone ringing distantly]
We believe that John was calling Laura's cellphone
to check and make sure that she was actually dead.
NARRATOR: John's cell records are strong evidence, but not
enough to convict him, and his suspected hitman,
Jesus Trevino, is still on the run.
Jesus's ex-girlfriend in Colorado
was able to provide us with his new
cellphone number, and we locate Jesus
in Clearwater, Florida.
NARRATOR: Jesus is beyond the reach of Texas detectives,
so they call on the U.S. Marshals for help.
And because Jesus was a convicted sex offender who had
failed to register, the U.S. Marshals Service
arrest him, and they bring him back to Dallas County jail.
SAWYER: Once Jesus got back to Dallas,
he continued to deny any knowledge or involvement in
Laura's death.
NARRATOR: With co-workers, Jesus and James, both in custody,
Rowlett police go after their boss,
John Makris, the suspected mastermind.
We locate John Makris in Plano, Texas.
He didn't ask us any questions.
He didn't say a word about what he was being arrested for.
So we believe that he knew why we were there.
NARRATOR: Back at the station,
Texas Ranger James Holland presents John Makris
with the evidence against him.
NARRATOR: But John Makris remains unmoved.
After being interviewed for close to two hours,
John still denies being involved
with Laura's murder -- without John's confession,
we don't have anything actually tying John to
Laura's murder.
NARRATOR: With both John and Jesus refusing to talk,
police circle back to
James Villeda, the suspected getaway driver held only on
possession of pot.
James seems to have an infatuation with
the Texas Rangers for some reason.
NARRATOR: Now facing new murder charges
for his suspected role as driver, James
agrees to talk to Ranger Holland.
NARRATOR: Ultimately, Ranger Holland gets James
to reveal the grisly tale.
James Villeda tells us that Jesus Trevino said he
needed to go out to Rowlett to kill a woman,
and Jesus wanted James to drive him out there to do this,
and James agrees.
SAWYER: James also told us that John bought
a silver Kia specifically for them to use to do
this murder so that none of their cars that were known to
them would be picked up on any video surveillance.
HATCHETT: We checked video surveillance from
the neighbors at the time of Laura's murder,
and sure enough, there is
a silver Kia on the video surveillance.
James tells us that once they get back to Dallas from Rowlett,
they switch back into another car that they use while working
with John, and they did that deliberately so that they would
be seen on the Home Depot surveillance.
NARRATOR: With James's confession, detectives
now believe they have a full account of what happened to
Laura Grillo. -HATCHETT: At around 7:25 a.m.,
James and Jesus arrive in John and Laura's neighborhood
and park down the street from their house.
SAWYER: At around 7:45 a.m.,
John and Laura both left that house to Laura,
take the kids to school, and John to go to work.
At about 8 a.m.,
James pulls up to John and Laura's driveway.
Jesus gets out and lets himself into the house
using the door code that was provided by John.
Jesus then waits in the living room of the home
for Laura to get home from dropping off the kids.
Shortly after 8:10 a.m.,
Laura arrives home and goes into the house.
She went towards the kitchen area,
and Jesus snuck up behind
Laura, surprised her, and shot her in the head.
[gunshot blasts]
HUNSICKER: After he killed Laura Grillo,
Jesus Trevino opens the safe, which is already empty,
because John Makris has emptied it the day before.
SAWYER: Jesus dumps out a bunch of papers and stages the scene
to make it look like she came home and interrupted a burglary.
At 8:23 a.m.,
Jesus leaves the house, gets into their getaway car,
and their getaway car is captured on video surveillance
leaving the neighborhood.
At 8:26 a.m.,
Jesus's cellphone pinged a cellphone tower about
a mile north of Laura's house as they were
leaving the area to go back to Dallas.
James tells us that the gun was discarded at
the GLOCO gas station between 8:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.
NARRATOR: Jesus tossed it into a public trash can.
But seven months later, the murder weapon is long gone.
Once they get back to Dallas,
they switch back to another car, which was different than
the silver Kia that was used during the murder.
And, at 9:43 a.m., video surveillance
shows all three men loading up John's truck.
NARRATOR: For his cooperation in bringing his co-conspirators
to justice, James receives leniency from the D.A.
James has given a plea offer to testify against John
and Jesus, and he's sentenced to 25 years in
the penitentiary.
NARRATOR: Hired gunman Jesus Trevino and mastermind
John Makris are each convicted of capital murder.
On September 21st, 2018,
both men are sentenced to life without parole.
HUNSICKER: This was just a senseless crime,
but the selfishness is really hard to describe.
This man left his child without
a mother, other children without a mother.
It's just a tragedy.
HATCHETT: Unfortunately, we will never be able to replace such
an amazing woman like Laura, who was
a great value and service to her community, and she was
a loving mother,
but being able to give her friends and family
the closure and justice that she deserves
will always stay with us.