A Devil’s Advocate for Jesus Mora Flores

In this post, I present myself as a Devil’s Advocate for Jesus Mora Flores, who was killed while in the act of (allegedly) raping a five-year-old girl in Texas. According to the killer, who is the girl’s 23-year-old father, he beat Flores to death with his fists when (he claims) he discovered Flores trying to rape his daughter.

I now propose a thesis: “Jesus Mora Flores was the victim of an elaborate set-up meant to result in his death, and that he didn’t do anything wrong.” This will be a difficult thesis to prove, since (apparently) the child herself was “spoken to” by the authorities so as to obtain her story, and there was forensic evidence of sexual abuse. Neither her story nor the details of the forensic evidence, however, was cited in any of the accounts I’ve read.

I have several scenarios in mind as to how Flores could have been set up, but I won’t detail those here. The main thrust of this article is to question the events as explained in the media. To continue:

By now, due to extensive internet and print media coverage, the whole world knows the name of Jesus Mora Flores. But it doesn’t know the name of his killer, which (as you’ll see upon scrolling down) can be easily discovered by just about anybody. But the media claims it will keep the killer’s identity secret to “protect the daughter.” I have to ask, protect the daughter from what? I have no doubt in my mind that everybody living in the general area surrounding the scene of the crime knows exactly who she is.

So she’ll grow up in this area being known as the victim of this crime. So how is she being “protected” by denying to the rest of the world her identity? By the time she becomes an adult, the rest of the world will have forgotten her name. But the relatives of the deceased will not have forgotten how easily the rest of the world was allowed to conclude that Flores was a child molester.

Flores’s guilt has not been, and is not scheduled to be, determined by a court of law. Since a local grand jury declined to send the 23-year-old father to trial, we will never have a judicial determination of Flores’ guilt. There seems to be something profoundly unfair about that.

Certain basic facts

I’m going to quote one article under my next heading, which I’ve found to be typical of the reports I’ve read on-line. But first some basics:

·       Flores was killed on June 9, 2012.

·       A Lavaca County grand jury declined to indict the father on June 19.

·       This grand jury deliberated before an autopsy, scheduled within the next two weeks, took place.

·       Most articles I’ve read cite “a witness” who ran up to the father to say he saw a man carrying the little girl away. It’s been known since this case first came to the public’s attention that this “witness” was in fact the little girl’s brother. Why are most reports vague about this?

·       Why are most accounts willing to “close the book” on this case? If Flores was capable of such a crime in broad daylight in the vicinity of people he knew and with no ready means of escape, why aren’t the authorities investigating if there might be a trail of victims out there?

Now for a report carried by the Associated Press

I’m going to quote an AP article in its entirety, though I’ll intersperse my own thoughts via indented comments. The title of this article is, “No Charges for Father in Beating Death,” by Paul J. Weber and Ramit Plushnick-Masti. In addition, Associated Press writer Juan A. Lozano in Houston contributed to this report.

Before I continue with the article itself, I want to say how unimpressed I was with its overall lack of very obtainable detail which anyone should fully expect in a piece credited to three writers. More than “unimpressed,” I was amazed. Now, on to the article itself.

QUOTE:

(SHINER, Texas) — Hearing his 5-year-old daughter crying from behind a barn, a father ran and discovered the unthinkable: A man molesting her. The father pulled the man off his daughter, authorities say, and started pummeling him to death with his fists.

I heard there’s going to be an autopsy soon. That might show Flores was kicked in the head. This possibility popped into my mind: He was kicked in the head and then it was made to appear he was raping this girl. Of course, if Flores was kicked in the head, that would cast doubt on the father’s claim of having beat him to death with his fists. If this doubt should turn out to be sufficiently profound, the father could be found guilty of lying to the grand jury. And if he lied about this, what else might he have lied about?

If, as he claims, the father “pulled the man off his daughter,” that meant Flores would have known the father was there and would therefore have been in a position to ward off some of those blows and perhaps inflict some of his own. And that would have allowed for enough time to pass for the rest of the father’s family, apparently following close behind the father as he went looking for his daughter, to intervene. I have a problem envisioning a 23-year-old kid (the father) being able to beat a 47-year-old horse handler to death within a relatively short span of time.

With his daughter finally safe, the father frantically called 911, begging a dispatcher to find his rural ranch and send an ambulance.

This sentence is a classic example of journalists trying to build sympathy for one they perceive to be the victim. The “daughter was finally safe” as soon as the father pulled Flores off of her and his family was close enough to ensure Flores wouldn’t attack her again. A more neutral rendition of this sentence would go something like this: “As soon as Flores’ body slumped to the ground, the father frantically called 911, begging a dispatcher to find his rural ranch and send an ambulance.”

"Come on! This guy is going to die on me!" the man is heard screaming on the 911 call. "I don't know what to do!"

A recording of the tape was played during a news conference Tuesday where the Lavaca County district attorney and sheriff announced that the father will not face charges.

In declining to indict the 23-year-old father in the June 9 killing of Jesus Mora Flores, a Lavaca County grand jury reached the same conclusion as investigators and many of the father's neighbors: He was authorized to use deadly force to protect his daughter.

"It's sad a man had to die," said Michael James Veit, 48, who lives across the street from where the attack happened in this small community run on ranching and the Shiner beer brewery. "But I think anybody would have done that."

I simply must address those last eight words: “I would not have done that.” And there are others like me. But maybe Mr. Veit couldn’t imagine “anybody” he knew failing to “have done that.” This is Texas, after all, which means they don’t much like Mexicans. In spite of being in the Bible Belt, in which a loving and forgiving Jesus Christ is worshipped. Maybe that love and forgiveness can’t be directed toward Mexicans by God-fearing Texans.

The family ranch is so remote that on the 911 tape, the father is heard profanely screaming at a dispatcher who couldn't locate the property. At one point, he tells the dispatcher he's going to put the man in his truck and drive him to a hospital.

I absolutely refuse to believe that the “dispatcher…couldn’t locate the property.” Unless the father (purposely?) gave bad information. A ranch can be remote but that doesn’t mean it’s unidentifiable.

"He's going to die!" the father screams, swearing at the dispatcher. "He's going to f------ die!"

The tense, nearly five-minute call begins with the father saying he "beat up" a man found raping his daughter. The father grows increasingly frazzled, shouting into the phone so loudly at times that the call often becomes inaudible.

Five minutes is way too long for a 911 call. Why didn’t a member of the father’s family, several of whom were with him when he made the call, simply take the cell phone out of his hands and calmly (and briefly) give the dispatcher the necessary information?

The Associated Press is not identifying the father in order to protect the daughter's identity. The AP generally does not identify victims of sexual assault.

"He's a peaceable soul," V'Anne Huser, the father's attorney, told reporters at the Lavaca County Courthouse. "He had no intention to kill anybody that day."

Part of what impressed the grand jury was the shaken father’s apparent remorse, demonstrated when he got all emotional during that 911 call. If the father had it in his mind to murder Flores, it would be very useful to have such a call on record. As for the lawyer’s claim – “He had no intention to kill anybody that day” – all I can say is: Lawyers love addressing the issue of “intent” even if the obvious defense is the father’s justifiable rage.

How does this attorney know he’s “a peaceable soul?” I read one account (but only one) that says this killer had “mostly” stayed out of trouble. All the others spoke of him as a good kid who never got into trouble. I’d like to know more about possible exceptions to his “mostly” staying out of trouble. If he’s got a five-year-old daughter, he might have gotten the mother pregnant when he was 17. And if he also had a son, he could have been born earlier than that. I’m assuming the son was older than the daughter, since he had the presence of mind to find his father and tell him about having seen his sister abducted. But of course none of the articles bothers to mention his age. Nor is it mentioned if this 23-year-old father had a wife (that is, was he married and, if so, where was his wife when this crime took place)?

An even more critical question: Was Jesus Mora Flores the only one on that farm who wasn’t related to the others present?

The attack happened on the family's ranch off a quiet, two-lane county road between the farming towns of Shiner and Yoakum. A statement released by the district attorney said a witness who saw Flores "forcibly carrying" the girl into a secluded area scrambled to find the father. Running toward his daughter's screams, the father pulled Flores off his child and "inflicted several blows to the man's head and neck area," investigators said.

Emergency crews responding to the father's 911 call found Flores' pants and underwear pulled down on his lifeless body. The girl was examined at a hospital, and Lavaca County District Attorney Heather McMinn said forensic evidence and witness accounts corroborated the father's story that his daughter was being sexually molested.

What was the nature of that “forensic evidence?” If these witnesses were close enough to see the girl being sexually molested, then they were close enough to intervene in a fatal beating.

The father was never arrested, but the killing was investigated as a homicide.

It was indeed a homicide, which is why I’ve referred to the father as a “killer.” Some people might be uncomfortable with my choice of words. So for them, I’ll suggest they read my “killer” as “justifiable killer.” Either way, a killer is someone who kills someone – it’s really as simple as that.

Philip Hilder, a Houston criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, said he would have been surprised if the grand jury had decided to indict the father. Hilder said Texas law provides several justifications for the use of deadly force, including if someone commits a sexual assault.

"The grand jury was not about to indict this father for protecting his daughter," he said.

Closer to the truth: “No grand jury around here is going to indict a local boy for having killed a Mexican whom, to all appearances, was molesting his daughter.” But of course Mr. Hilder couldn’t come right out and say that, now could he?

Authorities said the family had hired Flores before to help with horses on the ranch. He was not born in the U.S. but was here legally with a green card. Attempts to locate Flores' relatives through public records were unsuccessful.

So the family knew Flores. How did Flores come to be employed in the first place by this family? Since that time of original employment, did Flores and the father quarrel?

Flores lived in Gonzales, TX, which is about 20 miles from the killer’s ranch. Since the family had employed him before, presumably they should know his address. Since he had a green card, he had to have listed an address to obtain it. So his home address must be known. Is this article claiming that Flores lived alone? Or that he had no neighbors who knew him?

On Tuesday, a new "No Trespassing" sign was freshly tacked onto a gate barring entrance down a gravelly, shrub-canopied path leading to the barn and chicken coop on the ranch, which belonged to the father's dad.

At the father's house, the front yard could pass for a children's playground: blue pinwheels sunk into patchy grass, an above-ground swimming pool, a swing set, a trampoline and a couple of ropes dangling from a tree for swinging. A partial privacy fence is painted powder blue.

No one answered at the father's home. A few miles away, at a home listed as belonging to the father's sister, a woman shouted through the front door that the family had nothing to say. Huser, the father's attorney, told reporters that neither the father nor anyone else in the family would ever give interviews and asked that they be left alone.

It’s probably better if no one in this family speaks to the media. Anything said might end up being used against them. And you’d better believe no one is going to have another chance to talk to the daughter. Of course, if a wrongful death lawsuit is ever filed by Flores’s family, too much time will have passed to allow for any deposition to be taken from the daughter. By that time, she will have become an unreliable witness. So even if this deposition were to cast doubt on the father’s claims, his lawyer could then invoke the “unreliable witness” claim.

Veit, who lives across the street from the ranch, described the father as easygoing and polite – down to always first asking permission to search Veit's property for animals that had wandered off the ranch, even though the families have long known each other.

“Easygoing and polite?” But apparently capable of exploding into a fit of rage sufficient to kill. I guess that could be said of most people, though. At least, that’s the sense I get after having read on-line comments from numerous posters.

Veit's son was a classmate of the father's at Shiner High School in a graduating class of about two dozen. Veit, 48, said the young father was never known to be in trouble.

So, the father went to Shiner High School and graduated with two dozen others, including Veit’s son? That should be enough information to figure out who this anonymous father is. And that would make it easier to determine just how much or how little trouble this man had ever gotten himself into.

"Just like a regular kid, went to dances, drank beer like the rest of the kids around here," Veit said.

And “like the rest of the kids around here,” became a (possibly unmarried) father at age 17 – or younger?

Shiner, a town of about 2,000 people about 80 miles east of San Antonio, revolves around the Spoetzl Brewery that makes Shiner, one of the nation's best-selling independent beers. Even gas stations here sell it on tap.

Flores' death is only the sixth homicide the Lavaca County Sheriff's Office has investigated in the last eight years. Shiner residents boast their squeaky-clean image on a highway welcome sign: "The Cleanest Little City in Texas."

At Werner's Restaurant, customer Gail Allen said she didn't want to speak for the whole town, though her comments echoed what others said.

"The father has gone through enough," said Allen, 59, who has nine grandchildren. "The little girl is going to be traumatized for life, and the father, too, for what happened. He was protecting his family. Any parent would do that."

:UNQUOTE.

My two posting on Yahoo News!

I tried to post my impressions on Yahoo News! – twice. I’ll now quote those two, only the first of which was actually posted. The second was censored* by Yahoo News! and therefore never saw the light of day.

QUOTE [successfully posted on June 21]:

“[The father] pulled Flores off her, and ‘inflicted several blows to the man's head and neck area.’” More likely? The father didn’t pull Flores off her but he ran up behind Flores, leaped off the ground, and planted a flying foot square in the back of his head.

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

“Most people would say, “so what?” but I happen to be a firm believer in telling the truth.”

:UNQUOTE.

QUOTE [attempted to post on June 21, but was censored]:

One of the locals hit the nail on the head when he said words to this effect: “You wouldn’t be able to get a jury from around here to convict the father.”

That being said, the (admittedly) remote possibility that this might be a fish story doesn’t matter. For instance, we don’t know if the father bore a grudge against Flores, whom he knew. And this anonymous father (described as a “peaceable soul” in this article) was described in another article as “mostly” staying out of trouble. I’d like to know more about the exceptions to this “mostly” claim.

D.A. McMinn talked about “witness statements.” What did these witnesses actually see? As for Flores himself, was any testimony offered by his family and friends, which could have led the jury to conclude that he, too, was a “peaceable soul?” How about a routine criminal background check? Was any such testimony even sought by the DA – of both Flores and this anonymous father?

Doesn’t it sound strange that someone about to commit this kind of crime would do so in broad daylight within hailing distance of the family who knew him? What was Flores thinking: “I’m gonna rape this child and flee to Mexico, which is where I came from legally because I couldn’t get any work there?”

Of course, how else could the DA have proceeded, knowing that a local jury wouldn’t convict the father anyway?

Steven Searle for US President in 2012
“I don’t jump to conclusions (I’m not Yahoo enough for that), thinking instead that all questions have to be asked. You know, due process of law and all that.”

:UNQUOTE.

In conclusion

Jesus Mora Flores. He’s dead, so we’ll never have his version of what transpired. When he was alive, he had parents and people who knew him. If any of those people are still alive, I wonder if they’ll be shocked by what’s been said of him. Will he be one of those people of whom it is said, “I thought I knew this man – as someone who could never do such a thing – but I guess that shows how little we can truly know people.” Of course, the same could be said of Flores’ killer – if it ever turns out he framed an innocent man. Even though such a thing will probably never be proved, I wonder if the locals are rethinking how well they really know this young man and, for that matter, his family.

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

“So much about this incident sounds so surreal, I wonder if demonic possession could explain how Flores did what so many people believe he did.

Contact me at bpa_cinc@yahoo.com

censored* - I have to qualify this claim, since I can really only claim with any certainty that “It seems to me that Yahoo News! censors.” However, I have read posts by others who claim they, too, get censored occasionally.