He first began frequenting San Bernardo Avenue, in the border city of Laredo, in the late spring of 2018. He was in his mid-thirties, a strapping man, at least six feet tall and two hundred pounds. His black hair was neatly trimmed on top and shaved on the sides, like a military cut, and he had a stubble beard. He drove a white 2015 Dodge Ram 2500 pickup that always appeared to be freshly detailed.
He usually showed up after dark, slowing as he came to the four-block section of San Bernardo a couple of miles north of downtown that many Laredo residents called “the prostitute blocks,” an area dotted with fast-food restaurants, gas stations, convenience stores, and low-rent office buildings. On any given night, there were six to ten women working the blocks. Whenever the man would pull up beside one of the women in his pickup, he would give her a smile. He told some of the women his name was Juan; with others, he went by David. He sometimes asked for oral sex, never intercourse, and every now and then he'd just want to go for a drive and talk. Occasionally he would take a woman to his home in a well-kept subdivision in far north Laredo, explaining that his wife and children were out of town. After an hour or so, he would drive her back to San Bernardo, hand her some cash, and wish her, as she stepped out of his white Dodge, a good evening. One of the women would later tell a close family member that he was the most pleasant of all the men she met there.
Read Full Article »