Three people were involved in a triple axe-and-knife murder that shocked the small Texas city of Laredo in 1991: Miguel Angel Martinez, 17, Manuel "Milo" Flores, 17, and Miguel Angel Venegas, Jr., 16.
When Venegas first arrived on the scene, he went to check out the residence and noticed that it wasn't vacant. Martinez claims that he was the one who demanded an increase in violence at that point.
However, Martinez claims that as Venegas entered the group dynamic, everything changed. Martinez claims that because Venegas "insisted on doing some damage," the gang brought an axe, a baseball bat, and several knives to the scene. They had all been taken from the Flores home.
"It was supposed to be the same as we did before: we went in, stole something, nobody home." Martinez claimed that he and Flores had visited the house before, when they occasionally broke in to steal drugs for cash.
The youths, inebriated and high on cocaine and marijuana, broke into the home of James Smiley, a Baptist youth counselor, who is 33 years old. Martinez knew Smiley well from her time working for him at an Arby's restaurant, and she had a house key that allowed the group entry.
The reason for the explosive violence that appears to be random is still unknown. In a series of direct-to-camera interviews, however, Martinez, Venegas, and other community members provide their accounts of the disputed night in "I Am a Killer," Episode 4, which is currently streaming on Netflix.
Although the murders were brutal, the perpetrators were so young that the courts debated for years whether they had been men or boys. Certain details regarding the killings are clear-cut: Ruben Martinez, a 20-year-old sofa survivor, was killed by Venegas using an axe. Miguel Martinez used a folding knife to stab that victim as well.
After that, Smiley and Daniel Duenez, 14, who was 14 years old, were killed by Venegas in two more rooms of the house. After that, Smiley's car, a telephone, and a television set were taken by Martinez and Venegas. According to O.J. Hale, the primary investigator for the Laredo District Attorney,"these are hands-on weapons." It requires a lot. You must have a strong passion for what you do.
Furthermore, there is no doubting the violent crime's grim determination, even though the crime's motivation is yet unknown. He declares, "I would have preferred that he be charged, put in front of a jury of his peers, and found not guilty." "Because no evidence of guilt was presented."
The older Flores admits that the group of teenagers was at his house together and that Martinez and Venegas were picked up by his son to go to the neighborhood where the killings were carried out. Says he wishes his son had the opportunity to clear his record, though. Flores was never incarcerated. There was conjecture that his father, Manuel Flores, who was a local lawyer and district judge for 20 years, had gotten away with it because of his legal ties.
Martinez, who was just a year older, was tried as an adult right away, found guilty of capital murder, and given the death penalty. He attracted attention from all over the world as a result of being the youngest person on Texas's execution row. His sentence was reduced to life in prison in 2002.
Due to his age of 16, Venegas's case was transferred between courts for years as the state tried to decide whether to try him as an adult or a juvenile. He crossed the border in 1993 after making an armed break-out from a juvenile detention center, but he was apprehended in Monterrey, Mexico, in 1995. After the courts decided to try him as an adult in 2004, he entered a guilty plea and was given a 41-year jail sentence for three charges of murder.
Flores never went inside the house, and the three young men who participated in the killings suffered radically different outcomes. Venegas has previously disputed the existence of Satanic influence as a driving force. Furthermore, he and Martinez were unable to back out of the killings. Martinez was warned by Venegas that "Satan wants their souls."
"I'm telling myself that the devil has my back."
Venegas claimed that when his first victim woke up before the attack, glanced at him, and then went back to sleep, it was additional evidence of his link to Satan on the night of the killings.
Venegas acknowledged that he believed Satan was in charge of him, stating that he had experienced the Devil's influence as a young boy. When he was eight years old, he used to fill jars with black widow spiders, throw them over his chest, and then rejoice because he wouldn't get any bites—he saw this as evidence of his control over the underworld.
Venegas claims, "I'm from a machista culture." "Dare is dare is dare."
"He wasn't going to go rob anything; he was on a mission. He believed he was on a Satanic mission. Satan desired to possess their souls."
But Venegas had a different recall of the events leading up to the killings. He said that Flores, not himself, had been the one who had suggested bringing guns. He goes on to say that they had discussed killing before they had even arrived at the residence, and that his accomplice had even dared him to kill.
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