The Devil Behind the Badge

Murder Most Foul

Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Hernandez, and Janelle Ortiz were four marginalized women striving to make ends meet as sex workers. They looked out for one another. But they would soon share a connection that none of them could have imagined. When Melissa was found dead, the other three women were on edge but assumed they were safe. Twelve days later, they too were dead and police had detained an unlikely suspect--Juan David Ortiz, a ten-year veteran of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where he carried a badge, a service revolver, and was entrusted to protect the community in which he eventually killed.

From September 3rd through September 15th, 2018, Ortiz, a husband and doting father to three children, lured his victims into his white Dodge truck and drove them to the outskirts of town where he violently executed them, leaving them dead or dying on the sides of dark, rural roads.

“The Devil Behind the Badge” is a fast-paced, electrifying book by Pulitzer Prize-winning USA TODAY journalist Rick Jervis. It tells the gripping story of the four murders that shook the small border town of Laredo, and the quest to unmask a cold, calculated killer who was hiding in plain sight. “The Devil Behind the Badge” is also a deeply human portrait of the four lives lost and an attempt to uncover what motivated Ortiz's descent into darkness. Along the way, it raises serious questions about the border crisis, the abuse of law enforcement, and the challenges of a federal agency to police its own ranks.

My guest today is the author of “The Devil Behind the Badge,” Rick Jervis.