Eight people testified Tuesday as to what they could — and couldn’t — remember in classroom B106 during registration at South Texas College a little more than 24 years ago. That was when an armed robbery sent three people to the hospital with gunshot wounds and left a 32-year-old senior security officer dead.
While testimony varied from whether there were one or two armed men or whether they had both had rifles or one had a handgun, what is certain is when the scene cleared, Carlos Hernandez was found dead, slumped in a chair, from a gunshot wound to the head behind a table where prospective students were paying for a semester of education.
The sometimes emotional testimony that could be tough at times for witnesses because of the length of time from the day of the attack — Jan. 13, 1998 — marked the first day of 42-year-old Roberto Ivonovich Ojeda Hernandez.
Ojeda is charged with capital murder in the case and had remained a fugitive in Reynosa for nearly two decades.
He has pleaded not guilty.
During opening statements, prosecutor Orlando Esquivel filled many of the blanks for the jury that have not been made public, including that the second suspect, a man named Jesus Lara, was also suspected as one of the gunmen.
Both Lara and Ojeda were on the McAllen Police Department’s radar in 1999 after a palm print later found on a car stolen in Reynosa was found at the H-E-B near STC, and after the armed robbery was linked to Ojeda, according to Esquivel.
The prosecutor said detectives learned both Lara and Ojeda lived near where that white four-door vehicle was stolen in Reynosa and even crossed into the city with Mexican police and recorded an interview with Ojeda, who the prosecutor said confessed and implicated Lara, but refused to cross into the United States.
However, in July 2018, Mexican federal police arrested Ojeda, who was then extradited to the United States in March 2019 over the allegations.
But on Tuesday, 8,800 days after the armed robbery, San Juanita Ruiz, who was a 24-year-old part-time employee at STC on Jan. 13, 1998, remembered what she initially thought was a joke end with Hernandez being shot right next to her.
When the first man came in, Ruiz just continued to work with her head down because she didn’t realize the gravity of the situation until she noticed a conversation between Hernandez and the individual wasn’t friendly.
She testified that she realized it wasn’t a joke and she reacted by saying “No, Carlos, no,” because she noticed his hand was on his gun.
“At that point I just heard the gunshot,” she said.
Maritza Morales, who was 22 on the day, had just started a part-time job with STC and was also near Hernandez when he was killed.
“I just froze at that particular moment,” Morales said, telling the jury she saw a gun barrel pointed right in front of her.
Morales testified that she heard the person pointing the gun say, “This is a holdup.”
She also said she heard someone say put your gun away to Hernandez, who she said had taken his gun out before and was putting it back in its holster when he was shot.
After hearing the gunshot she ducked to the floor.
“I was seeing the bullets, the bullets would hit the ground and hit the ground and go up and hit the ground and go up and hit the ground and go up,” she said.
However, Morales and Ruiz’s testimony differed on the weapons, with Morales remembering a long gun being pointed at Hernandez while Ruiz remembered a handgun.
So far, witness testimony has indicated that after Hernandez was shot someone brandishing a rifle fired into the classroom’s floor, sending bullet fragments flying and hitting three people, including two sisters.
Siblings Melinda Singleterry and Maria Hernandez were also called to the stand to testify about that day.
Singleterry, who was 19 at the time, said she went to STC to register for classes for the first time with her older sister who had prior experience with registering for a semester at the then-University of Texas-Pan American.
Singleterry had trouble remembering details from the traumatic event, but testified she saw two men in ski masks walk in, one who had a “big gun” and another who had a handgun.
Witness testimony has differed on whether both men wore ski masks or that the man brandishing the handgun wasn’t wearing one and had a mustache. There has also been a witness who only remembered one armed man.
Singleterry later told police she heard someone tell the security guard to hand over the money and then saw Hernandez get shot after he made a gesture.
She said she then pushed her sister, Maria Hernandez, down before a second series of shots rang out. Singleterry doesn’t know who fired those shots but she sustained gunshot wounds to her arm and elbow and was bleeding out because a main artery had been hit. She has numbness and mobility issues to this day.
Singleterry never went back to STC.
Maria, who was 27 at the time, had an even harder time remembering that day than her sister, saying she has blocked much of that day and couldn’t even testify to the statement she later gave to police because she just did not remember giving the statement.
“I remember, and it haunts me to this day, … the odor of gunpowder,” she said.
She testified that she doesn’t remember seeing anyone with guns.
“I just heard give me the money and then I just remember the gunshots: boom, boom, boom,” she said.
Maria sustained gunshot wounds to the abdomen and needed exploratory surgery because of the damage.
Julio Cesar Rivera, who was 20 at the time, was also a temp worker on the day of the robbery working as a tuition cashier.
Rivera, who said he spoke frequently with Hernandez, the security guard, also testified that he saw two armed men and was making copies when his acquaintance was shot prior to the man armed with a long gun firing into the floor.
He sustained gunshot wounds to his legs, back and stomach.
Testimony is scheduled to continue Wednesday afternoon.
