Dallas couple wrongfully arrested for murder

DALLAS — It was simply earlier than 6 a.m. on Dec. 19 when Rubi Esparza heard a noise on the door.

“I’m thinking somebody’s trying to break in,” she mentioned. “I woke up my husband.”

But it was not a burglar. It was the police. They had warrants for her and her husband’s arrest.

“They had rifles pointed at me,” she mentioned.

The warrants accused Esparza, 33, and her husband, Basilio Tovar, 50, of killing an acquaintance – a killing police now concede the couple didn’t do.

“I think it was a hunch that the detective had,” mentioned their lawyer, Chris Mulder. “He thought maybe he could get Ruby to implicate her husband.”

In an announcement, Dallas police mentioned, “detectives…had probable cause the suspects were involved in the murder.”

“Upon further investigation, it was determined they did not commit the crime,” the assertion mentioned. “We can confirm the paperwork has been filed for the charges to be dropped.”

The assertion mentioned police now have a “person of interest.”

Police had believed Esparza and Tovar killed 29-year-old Xavier Ramon Hernandez-Hankins.

He’d been courting Tovar’s sister.

On the night time of Nov. 5, all of them met up on the Player’s Bar on West Illinois Avenue in Oak Cliff.  Esparza says they didn’t know Hernandez-Hankins nicely. It was the second time they’d met him.

According to the warrant, Basilio’s sister later instructed a detective that Hernandez-Hankins obtained upset and left on foot. The warrant doesn’t point out why he’d gotten upset.

A taking pictures name got here in at about 1 a.m. not removed from the bar. Someone had shot and killed Hernandez-Hankins.

The couple says they’d didn’t discover out till later that he’d been killed.

Basilio’s cousin, who was with them on the bar that night time, works in Mulder’s regulation workplace. She instructed Mulder in regards to the taking pictures. He says he instructed her to only wait for police to contact them for an announcement.

Neither the cousin nor the couple have been contacted for their statements previous to the couple’s arrest.

The couple drives a black Silverado with a mattress cowl much like the suspect’s automobile. But Mulder says the edges on their truck are totally different than that of the suspected shooter’s.

The warrant says video surveillance confirmed a more moderen mannequin black Silverado with chrome lining, chrome wheels and a mattress cowl pulling up subsequent to him after which instantly driving off.

“When I saw the probable cause affidavit, the warrant of arrest, then that really upset me,” Mulder mentioned. “It basically says, ‘Y’all have a black pickup truck, and a black pickup truck was seen near the offense, time and date. That’s it.’”

The couple says when police obtained them right down to the murder unit, they tried to show them towards one another.

“He said, “Well your wife already told me. You might as well go ahead and tell me why you did it,” Tovar mentioned. “(I said,) I know my wife didn’t tell you nothing because there’s nothing to tell.”

Esparza says when she instructed the detective what she recalled from that night time, “he came back and said, ‘You’re lying.’”

She says the detective implored her to consider her youngsters.

“Once I got the hang that he was trying to put something on me and my husband, I said, “No. If I’m a suspect. I need an attorney,’” Esparza mentioned. “So he got upset and he gave me his card and said, ‘Call me if your story changes.’”

Police booked Tovar and Esparza into the Dallas county jail.

“I was crying. I kept thinking about my kids, my husband, and I’m like murder like, this is crazy,” Esparza mentioned.

After the couple’s arrest, Mulder says they started getting ideas and information in regards to the id of the potential suspect. Once he’d gathered up the information, he drove to police headquarters on Dec. 22.

The detective was on trip, he was instructed.

Esparza and Tovar spent Christmas in jail.

“When they finally looked at it, it was convincing enough where they cut these folks loose within a day,” Mulder mentioned.

In the meantime, Esparza misplaced her accounting job. Police seized their truck, which stays within the Dallas police auto pound awaiting its launch. They additionally seized their telephones, which they’ve but to get again.

Detectives searched their home, too.

“According to my mom, they turned it upside down. They went into our room and just took out everything,” Esparza mentioned.

Esparza’s dad and mom stay in a house behind theirs.

“They’re screaming back there to open the door and my parents just got shook up,” Esparza mentioned. “When my mother obtained up, they did not even let her return to the room to get the child.”

“It was just something that I watch on TV,” Esparza mentioned. “It’s not something that I would expect to happen to us.”

Esparza obtained out Thursday and spent 10 days in jail. The jail launched Tovar Friday.

Esparza is grateful her sons – 8 and 10 – weren’t dwelling when police arrested them.

Mulder says the couple would in all probability nonetheless be in jail in the event that they didn’t have a relative working at a regulation agency.

Tovar instructed WFAA the detective referred to as him over the weekend.

“He just called me let me know that he was sorry for making a mistake,” Tovar mentioned.

Police additionally instructed WFAA they’re reviewing how they got here to arrest two harmless folks.

“Nobody should go through this,” Esparza mentioned. “Police should really do a better job.”