http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1768794
East End suspects linked to missing teen
DNA found in vehicle matches Ayala's
By JANETTE RODRIGUES
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
Blood found in a sport utility vehicle has linked the disappearance of 13-year-old Laura Ayala to the three men accused in the abductions and slayings of three women in Houston's East End last year, authorities said Thursday.

The Harris County Sheriff's Department confirmed that the county medical examiner's office matched DNA from the blood, discovered by sheriff's investigators, to a sample taken from Ayala's parents.

Houston police investigating the girl's kidnapping now believe she was snatched from a southeast Houston street near her home almost a year ago by Walter Alexander Sorto, 25; Edgardo Rafael Cubas, 24; and Eduardo Navarro, 16. The suspects -- arrested in August -- have been charged with capital murder in the deaths of two waitresses and a 15-year-old girl.

The SUV belonged to Cubas' father, said a source who did not want to be named. Police said Cubas has acknowledged that he, Sorto and Navarro borrowed the white vehicle on occasion.

"This is the first confirmed lead," Houston homicide Lt. Murray Smith said. "The fact that it's forensic evidence, we have a lot of confidence in it."

Authorities conceded the fact that Ayala is still missing presents "a great deal of difficulty" in the investigation. Smith said they are not ready to send the case to the district attorney's office for charges.

The girl was last seen on the night of March 10, 2002, at 2610 Broadway near her apartment.

Her relatives said they don't feel any closure, just pain.

Ayala's aunt, Francisca Liverato, said the family will cling to hope "as long as they don't find her, as long as they don't confirm that she's dead."

Liverato spoke outside the apartment near Interstate 45 and the South Loop where the girl's mother, Angelica Rebollar, lives. Rebollar did not answer the door or come outside to speak to reporters, who were gathered in the parking lot from which Ayala disappeared almost a year ago on her way to pick up a newspaper at a nearby convenience store.

"Es muy doloroso," Liverato said in Spanish. "It is very painful."

Frustrated after hundreds of tips led them nowhere, Houston police received their first break in the Ayala case after the medical examiner's office released the DNA test results this week.

Dr. Ashraf Mozayani, chief toxicologist and DNA lab director for the medical examiner's office, said the lab did a kind of paternity test on the stained blood evidence collected by the sheriff's office.

"At least we have some answers for the parents now," she said.

Sheriff's homicide Sgt. Bruce Williams said the blood, as well as semen matching the DNA of one of the suspects, was discovered during an investigation into the January 2002 rape and shooting of 15-year-old Esmeralda Alvarado. The suspect's identity was unavailable late Thursday.

"We thought the blood might come back to Esmeralda Alvarado," Williams said. "When it came back to an unknown female, we called HPD and told them they might want to get with the Ayala family."

Because the DNA tests were conducted by the medical examiner's office, the Ayala case is not among the 87 cases that the district attorney's office plans to review because of problems at the Houston Police Department crime lab.

Houston police did not learn about the DNA evidence that turned out to be a match for Ayala until December, Smith said.

Police have no reason to believe that Alvarado and Ayala were killed at the same time and place, Smith said.

"More likely we are focusing on the same suspects," he said.

Last year, HPD investigators were looking at Cubas, Sorto and Navarro as suspects in the disappearance of Ayala but did not have any evidence. All three suspects have denied any knowledge of what happened to the girl.

"At this particular point, I don't think that they are going to give us any other information other than what they have given us," said HPD homicide investigator H.A. Chavez. "And they are not cooperating."

Authorities accuse the three of going on a thrill-seeking crime rampage of rapes, robberies and slayings that terrorized neighborhoods in the predominantly Hispanic East End last year.

Sorto and Cubas were charged with capital murder in the rapes and shooting deaths of Alvarado and waitresses Roxana Aracelie Capulin, 24, and Maria Moreno Rangel, 38, whose bodies were discovered June 1, a day after they were abducted from an East End restaurant.

Navarro, who will be tried as an adult, is accused of driving the getaway car. Under Texas law, the teen cannot get a death sentence because of his age; he could be sentenced to life in prison.

Police attribute the rapes, slayings and robberies to Sorto and Cubas. In all, police have said they are linked to six homicides between December 2001 and May 2002.

Deborah Vining, Ayala's Texas history teacher, was stunned to hear the news and had to take a moment to compose herself.

"Every week, we were hoping for the best," Vining said. "We just never dreamed it would be the worst.

"I can't even say this is closure right now. Just, why? Why? Why? Why? There was no reason for any of this."

If indeed the East End suspects are responsible for Ayala's disappearance, Vining said: "I hope they get what they deserve."

Chronicle staff reporters Rachel Graves and Daniel J. Vargas contributed to this story.