CHAPTER 13 | In the dead of night, a girl goes on a dangerous ride

A liberal dose

February 25, 2008

This series contains explicit language and graphic descriptions of violence.

Editor's note: To Catch a Killer is the true story of killer Andy James Ortiz, his young victims, and the Fort Worth police and Tarrant County prosecutors who brought him to justice. The 24 chapters will continue through March 9, with a chapter published most days. If you miss a day, go to www.star-telegram.com/killer to catch up. The entire story will be published concurrently online.

The story so far

A female's body was found at Marine Creek Lake in northwest Fort Worth. Police Detective Curt Brannan was called to the scene and attended the autopsy in his search for clues to her identity. So far, he had come up empty-handed.

CHAPTER 13

Early in her Saturday-morning shift, Victoria Curtis noticed a copy of the Star-Telegram lying around the nursing station at a Crowley nursing home. Curtis didn't normally read the paper, but for some reason she was drawn to it that day, July 22, 2000. When she started scanning the pages, she came across a story that gave her chills.

There wasn't much to it, just a few paragraphs beneath a small headline on an inside page. The night before, the body of a female had been found near Marine Creek Lake in northwest Fort Worth. Because of the advanced state of decomposition, police couldn't determine the race or age. The story concluded by saying the corpse was dressed in blue pants, but those few words were enough to send Curtis into a panic. She showed the paper to another nurse, who read it and tried to reassure her. But Curtis couldn't help jumping to conclusions, because by then her young niece had been missing for four days.

Krystal Minjarez, a pretty 13-year-old, had been living with Curtis off and on for several months because of problems with her mother. Curtis and the girl often locked horns, too, and on the previous Tuesday morning, after another argument, the aunt awoke to find the back door of her Crowley trailer home unlocked and Krystal gone. The girl had stuffed pillows beneath a blanket on the sofa to disguise her escape.

The wait began. Surely there was a limit to the girl's rebelliousness, Curtis thought. Krystal was only a kid, barely a teenager, and a sweet one at heart. She would grow tired of her adventure, whatever it was, and call Curtis. The aunt worked harder and harder to convince herself of that as one day led to the next without word.

By Saturday, Curtis was a wreck. No wonder she nearly fainted when she saw the newspaper story. It took a long time for Curtis to compose herself, to try to focus on her work and on the fact that Marine Creek Lake in northwest Fort Worth was a long way from Crowley, a suburb to the south.

'I'm going to stay positive,' Curtis thought. 'She's with a friend. She's going to come back.'

A life of heartache

They called her 'La Giggles' because Krystal was a girl who could and would laugh at almost anything. But few kids that age had known heartbreak like hers. Krystal was born in Abilene. Her mother and father never married, and her home life was one of dysfunction and tragedy. Krystal told other relatives that one of her mother's boyfriends had molested her. Her relationship with her mother was volatile. And then, in 1999, her older brother, Arthur, murdered an ex-girlfriend and four others in Abilene and was gunned down a few days later by police in Fort Worth, where he had been hiding.

Just a few months later, in December of that year, Krystal moved into the Crowley trailer park with Curtis and her two daughters, Lana and Daphne. Finally, the girl would have some stability and discipline, and Krystal seemed grateful most of the time. She always looked for ways to help around the house, kept them all laughing and could be so tenderhearted. Curtis would never forget how Krystal would pray. In the cramped trailer home, she shared a king-size bed with her aunt, and nearly every night, Curtis saw the girl's lips move as she closed her eyes.

'Just a minute, God,' the girl said one night. 'I have to put you on hold and talk to my aunt.'

But she could be exasperating, too. Continuously on the computer, seemingly addicted to teen chat rooms, Krystal would also monopolize the only telephone for hours at a time. When Curtis tried to limit her, the girl would storm into the bathroom and lock the door. Most troubling to the aunt was Krystal's craving for attention from boys, particularly an older guy who called himself 'Jaime.'

They met one day in the summer of 2000, when Krystal and her friend Michelle were walking together at a Crowley apartment complex. Jaime pulled up, rolled down his window and started chatting up Krystal.

Before he drove off, he wrote down his number on a piece of paper and handed it to Krystal, asking her to

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