Episode 12: 3 Texas Murder in March 1993.
This is post 5 of the Texas Murder Rabbit Hole I went down.
In this episode, I cover the Murders of Benito Garza, Victoria Ybarra, and LaVern Cross and make twice-baked potatoes.
I was originally going to do just the 4 previous posts since I found more information on them than the other murders that I came across. That was until I found a newspaper article that linked Benito Garza’s murder with 2 other women who were murdered during that same week period. Actually, this was the only article I found on her other than her Obituary. So I’m going to talk about these 3 in this post starting with the one that was originally on my list.
On Saturday, March 14, 1993, the body of 80-year-old Benito Garza was found in a field in Pharr. She was found partially clothed and had an injury to the back of her head. She was found after the police received a call about a “man down” at the location. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
The police were looking at the 3 being connected since the day before another woman was found another woman in a different field.
Victoria Ybarra was a 28-year-old single mother of three, her oldest being 7. They were living with her parents at the time since she was separated from their father. On Friday, March 13, 1993, her body was discovered in a field by two teenagers who were driving around Kenyon Road and Mile 19 while hunting and called the police. Investigator stated that the body was already decomposing when it was found. Her mother said that the last time she saw her was on Friday, March 5 when she left their home to take her kids to school. She also told her mother that she had plans of going to go out with friends that night.
When her mother didn’t hear anything from her on Saturday or Sunday. She went looking for her on Monday and can’t find her. That Tuesday, March 9, she filed a welfare report with Edinburg Police Department.
When the police started to Investigate a friend stated that they last saw her on Sunday, March 7 at Lalos Comedor, which was a bar near the Courthouse. Employees at the bar verified this and even described the clothes she was wearing that night that she was still wearing when they found her body. They also stated that some people did offer her a ride but she declined since she wasn’t ready to leave and no one is sure who she ended up leaving with.
They did interview the father of her children because that is who usually the prime suspect is but he has been in police custody for public intoxication. Which made me question who had her kids cause the article also said that her mother had picked them up on Monday when Victoria couldn’t be found. Unless she meant from school. Her children are all grown now. Her family is still looking for justice and is asking the public to please come forward if they have any information. Anyone with information about this case is urged to contact Hidalgo County Special Crimes Unit at (956)-668-8477
Finally, the article also connected the murder of 72-year-old LaVern Cross who was also found dead on Saturday morning. An autopsy determined this was due to a wound to her head by an unknown object. She was found laying on the floor by her son-in-law after the Pharr police had called to inform him that her pickup truck was found abandoned on Alberta Road. They believed that she surprised several burglars when they were trying to rob her house. She had been dead 3-10 hours before they found her. I found one other article on her but it states all the same things the other one does. Except that the police stated this was the first murder in the county that year.
Other than the Newspaper article I found that stated these 3 were possibly connected I only found one news article while googling and it was only on Victoria Ybarra. I can’t find anything else on the other 2 women. They were older than Victoria but the fact that all these murders happened around that week time frame and they were all found the same weekend. It’s strange, but it’s possible they could have been connected in a random happenstance. This picture for this post is of Victoria who was the only one I could find and it was from her obituary. I only found obituaries on her and Benito. I will include those and the newspaper articles I did find at the bottom of this post.
What do you all think? is there a connection like a Spree killer or just random?
I make Twice Baked Potatoes using a recipe I got from the Pioneer Woman. I changed it up to my likely which you can do as well.
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