By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A Texas Ranger asked to assist the Val Verde County Sheriff’s Office in the investigation of the murder of Sandra De La Cruz testified about his role Thursday.
Texas Ranger Joe Sanchez, who is stationed in Eagle Pass, was called as a witness in the ongoing murder trial of Clarissa Guerra, who has been charged with murder and evidence tampering in connection with De La Cruz’s killing.
Sanchez testified he has been a member of the Texas Department of Public Safety for 20 years. Sanchez said he grew up in Del Rio and attended local schools. He is a graduate of the University of Tennessee’s National Forensic Academy and a certified crime scene investigator.
Sanchez said he assisted sheriff’s office investigators in processing the scene of De La Cruz’s murder in the San Felipe Cemetery on March 7, 2021.
“I grew up in San Felipe, so I’m familiar with the area,” Sanchez told the jury.
Sanchez also told the jury about a diagram he had created of the crime scene and spoke about a series of photographs he had taken of the scene.
Sanchez said De La Cruz’s body was lying facedown on a paved road that runs along the back perimeter of the cemetery. The body was found near a large prickly pear cactus growing near the cemetery fence line. When she died, De La Cruz was wearing black boots, jeans and a bright pink sweater with horizontal black stripes.
Sanchez told the jury he found spines from the cactus on De La Cruz’s pants and dirt on both her knees, leading him to believe she was possibly kneeling for some time shortly before her death.
Sanchez spoke about a bullet he recovered from the nearby cactus, which also showed recent damage from a gunshot.
“I believe she was shot there at the cemetery,” Sanchez told the jury.
Under questioning from District Attorney Suzanne West, Sanchez also spoke about attending the autopsy of De La Cruz’s body the day after the murder and the two bullets and bullet fragments recovered from her body.
Under cross-examination by Del Rio attorney Michael J. Bagley, who is representing Guerra, Sanchez said no eyewitnesses to the murder or videos of the event had been located. He said, however, an audio recording from a nearby home had been collected by the sheriff’s office and on that audio, at least five shots could be heard.
When Bagley asked him how many total shots were fired at the scene, Sanchez said, “I believe there were at least six.”
Bagley asked if there were more shots, how the Ranger squared that theory with the six-shot revolver that had been recovered with one bullet unfired in the cylinder, and Sanchez said it indicated more than one weapon or one shooter reloading a single weapon.
When Bagley asked about the different directions from which the shots seemed to have been fired, Sanchez said one option was that De La Cruz was trying to move away from her assailant.
“The other option is that there were two shooters?” Bagley asked.
“Yes,” Sanchez replied.
Under re-direct by West, Sanchez complimented the sheriff’s office on its investigation of the murder and said he was aware that the vehicle used to convey De La Cruz to the cemetery had been recovered and that a cigarette butt had been recovered from the crime scene and another found in the car used to drive De La Cruz to the cemetery.
West also called a firearms examiner to the stand, who showed jurors the weapon believed to have been used in De La Cruz’s murder, a silver Smith & Wesson .357-caliber Magnum revolver with a black grip. The expert told the jury the projectiles recovered from De La Cruz’s body “were fired from (this) revolver.”
A Texas Department of Public Safety DNA expert also testified, telling the jury that Guerra “was excluded as a contributor” to material taken from the cigarette butt found near De La Cruz’s body in the cemetery. Both De La Cruz and Ernesto Olguin, who has also been charged with murder in connection with De La Cruz’s death, were “possible contributors” to material taken from that cigarette butt.
Guerra was, however, “a possible contributor” to material taken from the cigarette butt found in the car, the expert testified.
The DNA expert also testified that Olguin was “a possible contributor” to material swabbed from several different areas of the recovered revolver, while Guerra was “excluded as a contributor” to materials taken from the gun.
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