On the morning of October 24, 1988, Nancy DePriest, a twenty-year-old Pizza Hut manager and mother, was raped and murdered at the Reinli Street Pizza Hut in Austin (a different Pizza Hut than the one where Ochoa worked). After the attacker sexually assaulted the victim, he handcuffed her to the restroom counter and shot her in the back of the head with a .22 caliber pistol. Before leaving, he flooded the restaurant in order to destroy any physical evidence he might have left behind.

October of ’88, there was a murder in another Pizza Hut—a robbery, a rape, and a murder. A young woman was opening the store. I had seen her at managers meetings, but I didn’t know her personally. The murder was one of those with virtually no leads, and they closed the restaurant for a couple of weeks. Everybody was shocked. All the Pizza Hut employees in the city were shocked about what happened to that young woman.

A couple weeks later they reopened the restaurant. My roommate Danziger was taking me home from somewhere. He wanted to stop by the Pizza Hut where the murder occurred. And I really didn’t. He was curious about the scene, and I found that kind of weird. He was driving, so I had no choice. He drove up to Pizza Hut. I was in the car, and we were outside in the parking lot and I didn’t want to go in. We were arguing and arguing, and I said, “Fine, let’s just go in.”

We go in. He ordered a beer. The whole time I was nervous. I’ve always been the kind of person that wants to follow the rules. In high school, I went to the principal’s office once. Once. Never went again. Well, there was a Pizza Hut policy you couldn’t drink beer at any other restaurant, so we’re drinking beer there. He’s only eighteen, I’m twenty-one.

And then he wants to look at the scene of the crime. I go, “I don’t understand.” So he makes a toast, and I toast, but you know, I didn’t feel comfortable. I wanted to leave. We left shortly after, but as we were walking out, my roommate stopped to talk to a security guard, and asked him a lot of questions about the crime scene. I don’t know what he asked him—I was at the car when he was asking questions.

And we drove off. Apparently, the police officers—the detectives that were investigating this crime—had talked to the Pizza Hut employees. They said, “Whoever did it might come back. And if they come back, if you see anybody suspicious, call us.” So that looked suspicious, toasting, and you put it all together, we looked like suspicious characters.

A couple days later, on Friday morning, I was working and two detectives asked for me, and they said they wanted to ask me questions about a burglary. And they asked me if I wanted to go down to the station and answer them, and I said yes. They said I could drive my car or I could go with them; if I went with them they’d bring me back or whatever. Of course, they never brought me back.

This is where the needle’s gonna
go in if you don’t cooperate

So I go with them. I was naive. I didn’t know nothing about the system. I figured they were asking every employee at the Pizza Huts around the city. They take me into some kind of cubicle, what I know now is an interrogation room. What I later found out is that I was already a suspect in the murder. It was never about a burglary. They lied.

It was a Hispanic [detective] that walked in. When he walked in, he slammed his fist on the table. He starts asking me about why I was inquiring about the murder, rape, and all that kind of stuff. And then he’s telling me that if I know something, I should just tell him. Typical interrogation, but he’s yelling this whole time. He’s not being so nice.

He spoke to me in Spanish initially, but I was speaking to him in English, so he laid off Spanish. He was trying to get this Chicano bond thing, and like, you’re a cop—how can you ever get that? When it comes to detectives, they want to get their man. They don’t care.

He taps his finger on my arm at one point. “This is where the needle’s gonna go in if you don’t cooperate.” He’s telling me, “You know, if you know something about it, you can still get charged with capital murder and get the death penalty, ’cause you know something about it.” And I told him, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. If I knew something, I would tell you. I would help you, but I don’t know.”

So he kept yelling at me, saying, “If you don’t cooperate, I’m just gonna throw the book at you. They’re gonna send you to death row; you’re gonna get executed.” This is going on for hours. At one point a female detective walks in. I was getting tired, and I asked her, “Can I have an attorney?” And she got really upset. She said, “No, you can’t have one till you’re officially charged.”

At some point they give me a polygraph test. I failed. I failed all three polygraph tests. Even the ones where I said I didn’t pull the trigger, I failed. I mean, there’s nothing that I passed.

“If you don’t cooperate, this is where you’re gonna live the rest of your life, in this cell. Take a good look at it, ’cause that’s gonna be your home. You’re not gonna be able to hug your mom or your family anymore; you’re gonna die in the death chamber. You’ll live there until you die.”

I don’t know what’s going on. Everything’s spinning.

“Your partner on the other side is gonna testify. He’s about to talk. I don’t want him to get the deal. The Hispanic always gets the shaft, and the white guy always gets the deal.”

I tell him, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He shows me pictures of the autopsy.

“Don’t you feel sorry for her?”

“Yeah, I do, but what do you want me to do? I can’t help you.”

This is going on for hours. He said, “I’m just getting tired of this BS. I’m gonna book you. You’re young, you’re fresh for the prison. You’ve never been in prison, they’re gonna have you.” I took that to mean rape.

That was when I gave him the first statement.

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