Years after shooting, prison inmate seeks to clear man's name

RIO GRANDE CITY — The murder confession is laced with biblical references, penned by a prison inmate who says he just wants to make things right.

Written more than a decade after the crime, it carefully lists the sordid details surrounding the night of Jessie Ray Warren’s shooting death.

"You know it is not from one day to the next that one comes to the Lord," Gerardo Lopez wrote. "I saw that something had to be done and I kept praying for an answer."

In his letters, sent from a prison cell in Gatesville — about 35 miles west of Waco — Lopez attempts to clear Ismael Diaz of the crime. Diaz is currently serving a life sentence for capital murder.

The kidnapping-turned-murder was the result of a drug deal gone awry in February 1996. Diaz was found guilty of orchestrating Warren’s death, and Lopez — the man who pulled the trigger — was sentenced to 32 years in prison for murder and aggravated assault.

But in his letters written to the Diaz family and in affidavits sent to state prosecutors, Lopez says he killed Warren on an impulse, noting that Diaz did not instruct him to shoot.

"I’ve done a lot of wrong in my life," Lopez wrote. "I wanted for once to make something right."

THE MURDER

Several days before Warren’s death, a load of marijuana was taken from Diaz’s ranch, Lopez recounted in his correspondence.

A group of four men including Lopez, Diaz and his brother, Ubaldo Diaz, were taken across the Rio Grande to Camargo by fellow drug smugglers. Lopez said Mexican drug lords there questioned the men about the missing load, eventually beating them and threatening their families’ safety.

Frantic to bring the drug bosses a culprit for the theft, the group targeted Warren — it remains unclear whether he actually stole the drugs. They met at Diaz’s house and plotted the kidnapping of several people in Rio Grande City, including Warren’s.

Warren was living at 2 1/2 Mile North on Airport Road. The night of his kidnapping, neighbors told Starr County sheriff’s deputies, they heard a man yelling, "I am going to kill you, Jessie."

Lopez said Diaz eventually ordered the others to set the man free after driving him along several back roads. Warren was already suffering severe gunshot wounds he sustained during the kidnapping.

"That’s when me and Raul (Soto, another convicted kidnapper,) dragged Jessie into the brushes and that’s where I (shot) Jessie," Lopez wrote. "Ismael (Diaz) had no knowledge of what had taken place until we met him and his wife later … he got mad at us, well, really at me for what I had done."

Lopez wrote that Warren begged the men to kill him, likely because he was in pain from his injuries.

"I only did what … Jessie asked me to do," Lopez wrote.

THE PROSECUTION

In the days following the murder, many of the men hid from the authorities. Several were eventually caught, including Lopez and the Diaz brothers.

Lopez wrote that he lied to police about the crime to save himself from a life sentence or death row.

"I was afraid," he wrote.

Most of the men involved in the kidnapping have been prosecuted. Some, like Ismael Diaz, are facing life sentences.

Starr County District Attorney Heriberto Silva, who prosecuted the case, said several key witnesses and physical evidence were used to find Ismael Diaz guilty of the crime. Lopez’s claim that Ismael Diaz is innocent of participating in the man’s death would likely not absolve him of a capital murder charge, Silva added.

Texas’ law of parties allows for someone to be charged with capital murder for playing an indirect role in a slaying, effectively holding the person just as accountable as those who actually committed the murder.

"(Warren) could have been killed at the house just like he was afterward," Silva said. "There was voluntary participation from (Ismael Diaz) if you look at the totality of the situation."

In recent years, Silva has also received letters from Lopez that tell of his newfound devotion to God and his desire to help the Diaz family. He has even expressed interest in apologizing to the Warren family for taking the man’s life.

"Gerardo (Lopez) has gone back and forth telling different things depending on what he wants to accomplish," Silva said. "I don’t put any credence to what he has to say."

Silva said the smugglers likely targeted Warren out of confusion.

"It didn’t make a difference" if Warren actually stole the drugs, Silva said. "These guys just needed a body to show the Mexicans they were active in looking for their man."

Silva remains dubious of Lopez’s recent attempts to help Ismael Diaz.

"These people are not the type to get involved with in any way," the prosecutor said. "(Lopez) is not credible."

THE CONFESSION

The affidavits from Lopez are short and blunt:

"I am the person who shot and killed Jessie Ray Warren."

About five years after the crime, Lopez encountered Ismael Diaz’s brother Ubaldo at the state’s Neal Unit in Amarillo. The men began to correspond, and Ubaldo Diaz eventually convinced Lopez to help his brother receive a lighter sentence.

"A letter I received by Ubaldo really moved me," Lopez wrote. "He said: ‘Let’s make peace between us for our mothers.’"

Lopez recalled a revelatory dream that further convinced him to help the Diaz family.

"That’s when I wrote Ubaldo and asked him to do all he could to get Ismael back in court, that I would do all I can to help and say the truth," Lopez wrote. "I got nothing to lose, anyways."

After 13 years in the penal system, Lopez said he would rather face harsher punishment for the crime than see Ismael Diaz continue serving a life sentence for orchestrating Warren’s death.

"I wish I had done something a long time ago, but like I mentioned earlier, I was not ready to let the Lord into my life," Lopez wrote. "Too much pride."

For years, Ismael Diaz longed for Lopez’s confession.

"The time I dedicated asking for this miracle," Ismael Diaz wrote in Spanish in a letter sent from his cell in Beeville, about 55 miles north of Corpus Christi. "My Lord was planting in my heart a true love toward Gerardo (Lopez)."

Ismael Diaz and Lopez exchange letters in which they devise ways to appeal the former’s case.

"I know that my Brother Gerardo is ready not only to say the truth, but to give his life for me," Ismael Diaz wrote. "No one has a greater love than this."

‘THEY HAVE TO PAY’

Maricruz Cantu stores stacks of legal documents and photocopies of literature her brother Ismael Diaz sends her from prison. Most of it she cannot read or understand because it is written in English — often in complicated legal jargon.

"He sends me things to hold for him — similar cases he’s studied, documents from his own case," the woman said in Spanish as she sifted through the piles in her Rio Grande City home. "I just keep everything."

She visits her brother regularly, writes him letters and speaks to him on the phone as often as he is allowed.

She hopes one day they will meet again outside a prison visiting room.

"In the Bible, in the word of God, (Lopez) knows that what he did to my brother is not right," Cantu said. "I don’t doubt what he is saying now" is sincere.

But Lopez’s family, who turned him in to authorities after the murder, remains skeptical about his attempts to help a fellow prisoner.

"I still miss him. I still cry for him," his sister Vanessa Lopez said. "But it doesn’t matter what we think or what we say — what matters is the mother of Jessie. She’s the one without her son. She’s the one that’s suffering."

Efforts to reach the Warren family were unsuccessful.

"I try not to remember a lot," Vanessa Lopez added. "He’s my brother and I love him, and I’d rather not think of him that way. I’d rather not know what happened."

The family has hesitated to encourage him in his effort to help Ismael Diaz, she said, since "nobody has helped" her brother.

"I don’t want to get into this," Ismael Lopez’s brother Javier Garcia said during a brief telephone call. "What can I say? They’re in there and that’s it. They have to pay."