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Court Documents Reveal Details of "El Diablo" Investigation
Court Documents Reveal Details of "El Diablo" Investigation 11/27/12
According to court documents, The Department of Homeland Security began investigating the threats after being alerted by the Fort Stockton Police Department.
Death threats involving chemical weapons, car bombs and high caliber munitions had been made to employees and their families on the online forum topix.com
Threats were also made to authorities in Pecos, Big Spring and Midland, some of which were specific to family members of officers.
There were also threats to set off pipe bombs across Midland and Odessa using various usernames.
Topix.com identified the IP addresses the posts came from as well as the time and date of the posts. They were traced back to El Paso and Juarez, Mexico.
While these threats were being sent out, a secretary for a Pecos Municipal Judge said that she had seen the suspect, Jacob Ramos Esparza, just days before.
She says he had been at the courthouse to take care of a traffic citation when he made unusual comments about drug trafficking and took interest in photos of her children.
On November 10th, Homeland Security had found Esparza had entered America through El Paso and hew as in Mexico at the time the threats from Mexico were posted.
This is not the first run-in with the law for Esparza. Court documents show Esparza had been investigated for family violence in Ector County back in September against his stepfather. He had dealings with authorities in Big Spring, Ector County and Fort Stockton.
On November 19th, Midland Police got an e-mail containing YouTube videos showing graphic violence and threats. It was sent from the Fort Stockton Public Library. Staff at the library tell authorities that the day the e-mail was sent, they saw a man fitting Esparza's description using a computer in the library and had signed the registry "Jacob R. E."