Posted by DD republished from Dallas Morning News
DD: We reported earlier in the week on the opening statements in the federal trial of two of the men on trial in Ft Worth, Texas accused of Interstate Stalking with intent to kill and conspiracy to commit murder of a Mexican cartel lawyer who was slain in a murder-for-hire plot in Southlake, a suburb of Ft. Worth.
DD: We reported earlier in the week on the opening statements in the federal trial of two of the men on trial in Ft Worth, Texas accused of Interstate Stalking with intent to kill and conspiracy to commit murder of a Mexican cartel lawyer who was slain in a murder-for-hire plot in Southlake, a suburb of Ft. Worth.
The trial has proceeded
pretty much as expected but with some surprises in the testimony Murders and violence have been going on
across Mexico and also some in the U.S. for decades that involve family members
of 2 cartel leaders that are not drug or cartel related but a result of a family
feud.
Below are excerpts from
the Dallas Morning News covering testimony on Wed., Thursday, and today. Excerpts from Dallas
Morning News Wed. testimony:
FORT WORTH — The men on
trial in the hunting down of a Mexican drug cartel lawyer as part of a
murder-for-hire plot left behind valuable clues in a Southlake shopping center,
investigators testified on Wednesday.
A magnetic GPS tracker
stuck to the frame underneath Guerrero Chapa’s Range Rover helped Ledezma
Cepeda and his son locate and follow the victim to Southlake Town Square, where
he was gunned down by a two-man cartel hit squad.
That same tracker also
led federal agents to Cepeda Cortes, who prosecutors say set up an account for
that device and five other trackers using a fake name but a real email address.
Jeff Lloyd, a DEA analyst,
testified that the devices were purchased from a spy shop in McAllen.
Cepeda Cortes lived in
nearby Edinburg.
The FBI and DEA use the
same Blackline GPS trackers to follow suspects accused of crimes as part of
their routine investigations, Lloyd said. Agents identified
Ledezema Cepeda in part through email he exchanged with his cousin,
investigators said during the trial. They said they then matched a palm print
left on Guerrero Chapa’s Range Rover to Ledezma Cepeda’s prints taken after his
arrest.