NAME:
Christopher
Ochoa •
BORN:
1966 •
HOMETOWN:
El Paso, Texas
CONVICTED OF:
Murder and sexual assault
• SENTENCE:
Life
SERVED:
12 years •
RELEASED:
2001
Let’s
say you sit
at a bus stop,
and an hour
earlier somebody
just robbed
a bank and left
a big bag of
money there.
A bad guy. It’s
under the bench
at the bus stop.
Somebody else
found it—it’s
gone.
He goes back
to get his money.
He says, “Where’s
my money?”
What is he talking
about? You don’t
know.
He’s got
a gun, and he
puts it to your
head, but what
you don’t
know is that
this gun has
no bullets.
“Tell
me where the
money is or
you’re
dead.”
You tell him,
“No, no,
no, no. I don’t
know.”
You’re
just like shaking,
because you
don’t
know. If you
knew, you would
tell him, because
you don’t
want to die.
“I don’t
know. I don’t
know,”
you’re
thinking, “I
don’t
want to die;
I got to think
of something.”
“Where
is it at? Where
is it at?”
And then you’re
like, “Okay,
somebody took
it from here.
I saw somebody
running away
from here. He
went that way.”
Knowing darn
well you didn’t
ever see anything.
Then the guy
pulls away his
gun and for
some reason
you see that
it doesn’t
have any bullets,
and you feel
like such an
idiot. But you
didn’t
know. And that’s
how I felt.
[They were]
saying I was
going to die.
In late
1988, during a two-day interrogation,
Christopher Ochoa was persuaded
by police to confess to
a rape and murder he did
not commit. Threatened with
a death sentence, Ochoa
also implicated his co-worker
Richard Danziger in the
crime.
I grew up
in El Paso, Texas. From
what I remember, I was always
a good kid. One time, when
I was a kid, a cop scared
us. A mean neighbor, she
said that we cussed her
out and she called the cops.
We’re like ten years
old at that time. The cop
came into our house illegally.
He had no probable cause;
he just went in and scares
the living daylights out
of us. “You know I
can take you to jail for
this?” he said.
And then I called my uncle,
and my uncle got on the
cop: “What the hell
are you doing scaring little
kids? Isn’t your job
to try to be friends with
them?” And the cop
really didn’t know
what to say. That was the
only run-in that I had.
I trusted them. You’re
a kid, the cops give you
candy.
I was a patrol boy in high
school. They gave me a coupon,
a little certificate: “We’re
here to protect you, just
call us.” If there’s
anybody you can trust, it’s
a cop. And I did, and there
it happens.
When I went to high school,
I was playing sports, I
was studying. For some reason
I became a C-student, and
then I went back to being
an honor student. I was
the assistant editor of
a literary magazine. I took
some law class; we did a
mock trial. I was the prosecutor
and I won the case. And
it felt good. Maybe I could
do this law thing. Either
a lawyer or a major-league
baseball player. That’s
really what I wanted to
do. But things happened.
When I graduated
high school, I didn’t
go to college right away,
’cause we had a teacher
that said that sometimes
when you go to college right
after high school, you don’t
do as well as you would
normally. So she advised,
“You can go to college,
or you can take a year off
or two.” And I did.
I was optimistic. My future
was bright. Really bright.
I was a typical twenty-,
twenty-one-year-old, having
fun, going to rock concerts.
Drinking. Working. Primarily
working. I used to go to
Dallas for big rock festivals—Aerosmith,
Van Halen, Boston, all these
older bands. I worked at
an amusement park during
the summer. I was a ride
operator at the amusement
park, and then I moved on
to Pizza Hut in El Paso.
After a couple of years
in El Paso, I went to Austin,
where I worked at different
jobs until I settled at
Pizza Hut.
I had worked [at Pizza Hut]
with Richard Danziger. We
were both cooks, and he
left, he quit. And then
he came back maybe a couple
months later. He came back
looking for a job. I was
an assistant manager at
Pizza Hut by then, and he
was a good worker. He really
worked hard so I gave him
a job.
I saw him living at the
YMCA. I think he told me
he had been convicted of
something or other, or he
was on probation, and so
I said, “You can stay
with us until you get on
your feet. You just have
to pay rent.” I was
living with another roommate,
Roger Lewis, before I even
met Danziger. I was living
with him for a while, then
my brother came to Austin.
I had a manager, a boss.
I think she and Richard
started seeing each other,
and he would spend most
of the time at her house.
So it was like I had a roommate,
but I didn’t. I was
not that tight with Richard.
The media portrays us to
be really tight, which we
weren’t. He was a
cool person. He was a little
bit, I don’t know,
he was really open, I think,
whereas I was not. But other
than that, he was just a
cool guy. He wanted to be
a psychologist. So maybe
that was why he was so interested
in behavior and stuff.
But I didn’t go out
with him and have dinner
with him, no. I went out
with my roommate, Roger,
or my brother, Ralph. And
I had other friends that
I would hang out with. I
guess they were more down
to earth, more normal. So
it’s not like we had
this relationship. I just
know he was a hard worker
and he was a really nice
guy. It’s kind of
impossible for me to sit
here and tell you how he
really was.
I got the bug to go back
to school, so I went to
look into the Austin Community
College. I was going to
go in the spring of ’89.
That was my plan.
Next:
Suspicious Characters
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