Monday, October 7, 2013

HERALD EX PATTY GONZALEZ REMEMBERS JOEY FISHER CASE

Cristina Cisneros and Joey Fischer, at their high school prom
Cristina Cisneros and Joey Fischer, at their high school prom
In 1993, a sensational murder of a high school student who was gunned down in a conspiracy designed by his ex-girlfriend’s mother, swept a quiet Rio Grande Valley subdivision into the national news. Residents wondered how such a tragedy could have unfolded in their quiet cove.
Patricia Gonzalez-Portillo was then a reporter for The Brownsville Herald newspaper and became intimately familiar with all those involved, from the victim’s family those who took Joey Fischer’s life.
Gonzalez-Portillo, who now lives in the Los Angeles area, never forgot the story. She recently revisited the murder, and caught up with many of the people involved to see how it has since shaped their lives.

By Patricia A. Gonzalez-Portillo
Joey was smart, handsome and polite. Everyone said the Catholic high school honor student was well liked by all, the kind of boy that any mother would want for her daughter.
But when Joey broke his girlfriend Cristina’s heart after a brief romance, the girl’s mother, Dora Cisneros, took matters into her own hands: She ordered a fatal spell from a fortune teller, on the 18-year-old Joey.
It was a sensational case that could have been ripped from the pages of a Hollywood script, one that involved jealousy, betrayal and the occult—a murder that 20 years later remains without the arrest of the gunmen who killed Joey Fischer.
“They disappeared from the face of the earth,” said Cameron Country District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, who prosecuted the case a generation ago. “I would have to say they got in trouble and with the way things are these days in Mexico, someone probably ‘took care of them,’ and not in a nice way.”
And the middleman, Daniel “El Guero” Garza, who is serving life in prison for contacting the hit men, regrets the day he met Maria Mercedes Martinez, who is known in Brownsville as la curandera.
“That was my cruelest disgrace,” Garza, who is originally from San Antonio wrote from his prison in Palestine, Texas.
The killing
It was a cool 68 degrees the morning that Joey hosed down his mother’s car in his driveway at 3 Cortez Avenue in the community of Rancho Viejo. The 1,800 souls probably felt safe on March 3, 1993 in their upscale homes in the suburb that sits just outside Brownsville on the South Texas-Mexico border.
But that was about to change.
The quiet, peace and tranquility were forever interrupted shortly before 7 a.m., when Joey was shot twice at close range with a .38 caliber handgun – once in the chest and the other in the head.
The Brownsville Herald, in March 1993.
The Brownsville Herald, in March 1993.
Authorities initially called it a drive-by shooting. But a yellow business card dropped at the scene eventually led investigators to Martinez, the 73-year-old curandera, who hired two gunmen at the request of her longtime client, Cisneros, the wife of a prominent Brownsville surgeon.
“Why would a mother who lost a child take the life of a child?” asked Buddy Fischer, Joey’s father, referring to Garcia, whose oldest son was killed in a car accident when he was a senior in high school.
Dora Garcia Cisneros, left, is escorted by Cameron County Sheriff Alex Perez just before arraignment Jan. 31, 1994, in Brownsville, Texas. Cisneros, who was once convicted of using a fortuneteller to arrange the murder of her daughter's ex-boyfriend. Cisneros was convicted of capital murder in 1994 and sentenced to life in prison. But she was freed two years later after an appeals court ruled state prosecutors provided insufficient instructions to the jury. (Houston Chronicle)
Dora Garcia Cisneros, left, is escorted by Cameron County Sheriff Alex Perez just before arraignment Jan. 31, 1994, in Brownsville, Texas. Cisneros, who was once convicted of using a fortuneteller to arrange the murder of her daughter’s ex-boyfriend. Cisneros was convicted of capital murder in 1994 and sentenced to life in prison. But she was freed two years later after an appeals court ruled state prosecutors provided insufficient instructions to the jury. (Houston Chronicle)
District Attorney Saenz, who claims to have tried more capital murder cases that any prosecutor in Cameron County, refers to it as “the most personal case” in his near three-decade career.
“Joey’s dad still lives down the road from me,” said Saenz, who recently returned as the county’s top prosecutor after nearly 20 years in private practice. “As prosecutors, we’re not supposed to get involved with the people in our cases. But Buddy is my neighbor. This could have been a simple breakup but this woman’s obsession lead to that.”
Perhaps that strong connection was what led Saenz to take the case to federal court.
Dora Cisneros, now 78, in a federal prison in Florida and supposed to stay there until she dies.
The surgeon’s wife was originally sentenced to life in prison in 1994 following a murder conviction in a Texas state court.
However, an error in the jury instructions won her an acquittal from an appeals court in 1996. To make a federal case, Saenz proved Cisneros was involved in a plot that included travel and phone calls from nearby Mexico. Prosecutors proved the two hit men she hired came from Matamoros. Cisneros, described as a polite woman, very active in the Catholic church, the civic and medical community, did not reply to a request for an interview.
The trial
In both trials, prosecutors proved Cisneros first asked a curandera to cast a fatal spell on the Fischer boy for breaking up with her daughter in 1992. The fortune teller said she declined, prompting Cisneros to inquire if Martinez knew anyone who could kill the teenager who dreamed of attending The University of Texas at Austin. She also provided Martinez with a photo of Joey to help the two hit men and $3,000.
That’s when the curandera contacted Garza, who sought her help at her shop, in hopes she could help save his marriage of 22 years. Garza confessed that he contacted the hit men, but only so they could beat up Joey – not kill him.
Cristina Cisneros leaves the federal courthouse in Houston after her mother's trial.
Cristina Cisneros leaves the federal courthouse in Houston after her mother’s trial.
Martinez served six years in a Texas prison for her role in the killing. She was released in April 2001 and eventually died in Matamoros.
“I would always run into Mrs. Martinez’ son, who worked at a local restaurant,” said Saenz. “He would always tell me that his mother sent me saludos. As strange as it sounds, I developed a relationship with her son. The last time I saw him, I asked him how she was doing and he told me she had died several years ago.”
Heriberto Puentes Pizana, one of the suspected gunmen, jailed in Reynosa, Mexico for stealing cars, denied any involvement in the killing during an interview in 1994. He was never brought to trial in the United States because the Mexican government refused to extradite him to face capital murder charges that could be punishable by death. Israel Olivares, the other accused trigger man, was never arrested for the murder.
The letter
In a hand-written letter in Spanish, the now 63-year-old Garza, describes himself as a man of God who survived near death experiences, including a massive heart attack that led to open heart surgery in 2012. The letter was a reply to one written by the same reporter who interviewed him in 1994, hours after his arrest for his involvement in Fischer’s murder.
Garza, a devout Catholic, admitted his involvement in the teenager’s death. He said he regretted the day he met with Martinez about his impending divorce. Garza claimed he sought the
Daniel Garza
Daniel Garza
fortune teller in desperation, in hopes she could help him save his marriage to the mother of his four children, the youngest with muscular dystrophy.
“Law enforcement authorities washed their hands with me,” he states, from the unit for aging and ill prisoners. “I never had any problems with the law in my 42 years of life…until I got involved with the devil and went to the curandera.”
Throughout the letter, Garza thanks God for saving his life after a massive heart attack and two ruptured stomach ulcers that nearly killed him. “I was almost dead when they found me bleeding,” he writes. “The nurses at the hospital told me they gave me 12 pints of blood.”
Garza expects to die in prison, either from diabetes complications that have already deteriorated his vision or from his ailing heart. Incarcerated at age 43, Garza won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 78.
But despite his imprisonment, Garza never complains about life in his cell. “I live in great spirit thanks to God, Christ and our Holy Mother for all the support they have given me,” he states in the letter where he wished the recipient a ‘Happy Labor Day.’ “Including the family and every other friend who still remembers me.”
St. Joe
There is a new generation of students at St. Joseph Academy.
The students enrolled today were not even alive when Joey was killed.
Every so often, a student will ask why there is a gold plaque with the photo of a boy encased in the school’s gym.
Others who learn about it find it hard to believe that a girl in an old yearbook was indirectly involved in the murder of the boy who took her to prom.
A tribute to Joey Fischer, at St. Joseph Academy.
A tribute to Joey Fischer, at St. Joseph Academy.
Dr. David Cisneros, Christina’s father, no longer practices medicine at his office on Price Road.
Many of Joey’s best friends, including Patrick Aziz, York Saldivar, Marianela Caballero and Erika Borrego, are now married, hold executive jobs and have children. And the Fischer house, where Joey was killed, was sold five months after the murder at a loss of $18,000.
The house has had several owners since then, who have painted it yellow, added gray cantera columns and a Spanish tile roof. Although the house looks quite different than it did in 1993, those who live nearby can’t seem to forget the images that flashed on television newscasts and in newspapers of a lifeless Joey, clad in blue pants and an oxford shirt, covered by a funeral home cloth on his driveway.
The Fischers
Buddy Fischer no longer talks to reporters about his son’s killing, other than saying “the family as a whole has done well.” He was reluctant to speak on the record after all these years.
“I told my son Eric that I would never do another story about Joey,” he said.
Today, the 62-year-old Fischer is a grandfather of seven from daughter Kathy and Eric. His youngest son, Michael, who mirrors his brother’s handsome looks, has no memory of the family tragedy that happened when he was only five months old. On his Facebook page, a smiling Buddy stands next to Michael, wearing a red graduation gown, similar to the one Joey would have worn to walk the stage with the Class of 1993.
Buddy knows little about the people involved in his son’s killing, but he is at peace knowing that at least two of them will die in prison.
“I always read the obituaries in The Brownsville Herald – every day,” he said. “To see who’s still around from 3/3/93.”

8 comments:

Joaquin said...

I was too young to remember any of this. What a sad story. It'll be hard to forget.

Anonymous said...

The Sheriff's investigators were Abel Perez, Luis Martinez and Ernesto Flores. Of course George Gavito was always in the way...

Anonymous said...

All bull shiti

Anonymous said...

Do not forget 2 important facts, Cristina was pregnant with his child, and he forced her to "get rid of the baby". Yes sir, don´t forget that.

Unknown said...

Thanks for running my story, Juan Montoya. I'm honored!

Saludos,

Pat Gonzalez-Portillo
Journalist
Los Angeles, CA

Anonymous said...

"and he forced her to get rid of the baby"---as in putting a gun to her head?

Don't understand this comment---hinting that he deserved it perhaps?

That killing witch always feeling so entitled---to the point of murder.

This is so sad and painful to read---hope his family has found some comfort and consolation.

F$$K closure---no one ever has closure---only in the movies.

Anonymous said...

This story was in the Houston Chronicle, published Sept. 27, 2013. You stole it and did not attribute it.

Anonymous said...

She was not having a baby... He was a Senor and was going away to college and decided it would be better to break up. the Mom offered him $500.00 not to break up, He was a good kid. the Mother talked to a curandera that asked her what do you want to do? beat him up and she said DEAD! Get your stories staright before you open your SICO DE PERRO! C/S

rita