FORMER MEXICAN POLICE OFFICER PLEADS GUILTY TO CRIME OF ‘STALKING’ IN SOUTHLAKE, TEXAS DRUG CARTEL MURDER

Borderland Beat
April 21, 2016

Borderland Beat has covered the case of Guerrero Chapa's murder extensively. Chapa, a Gulf Cartel attorney, had been sitting in the passenger seat of a Range Rover with his wife parked in the parking lot of the city's popular Southlake Town Square, near Banana Republic, when a white SUV pulled up next to them. Witnesses say a masked shooter got out and fired at least five rounds with a gun that possibly had a silencer on it. The male victim was hit multiple times by the gunfire and later died at Baylor Regional Medical Center at Grapevine.

As reported in the Dallas Morning News, JesúsGerardo Ledezma Campano Jr., 32, pleaded guilty to the Federal crime of stalking in a secret hearing last month. The former Mexican police officer and his father, 59-year-old Jesús Gerardo Ledezma Cepeda, and his father’s cousin, 59-year-old José Luis Cepeda Cortes are accused of using high-tech remote cameras and GPS devices to track Juan Jesús Guerrero Chapa before he was shot dead at Southlake Town Square on May 22, 2013.

Ladezma Campano and his father, both Mexican citizens, were arrested in McAllen Texas while crossing the border more than a year after the shooting in Southlake. The cousin, Jose Luis Cepeda Cortes, a legal US resident, was arrested at his home in Edinburg Texas.

The three defendants are alleged to have stalked Guerrero Chapo for 2 years using more than a half dozen vehicles, hidden surveillance cameras at the entrance gate to the subdivision where Guerrero Chapa lived. The alleged stalkers also are accused of putting a GPS tracking device on the victims Range Rover

As part of the secret plea deal Ladezma Campano agreed to tesitify against the other defendants. The trial of Ladezma Camano and Jose Luis Cepeda Cortes is to begin this coming Monday, April 25, in Federal court in Fort Worth, Texas. Southlake is a suburb of Fort Worth. A defense attorney said that the defense could call as many as 60 witnesses.

Three other people have been charged in sealed indictments because they remain fugitives. It’s unclear what role they played in the slaying.

The killer has not been publicly identified or charged.

With all the witnesses to be called in the upcoming trial, mostly law enforcement, people involved or knowledgeable in organized crime activities, the testimonies may reveal more of the inner workings of the cartels than any previous trial. It should prove interesting. Most of your cartel heads never go to trial, they almost always plead guilty, So public trials where all the nitty gritty details are laid out is actually pretty rare.

It should be safe to assume that all of the defendants and the others named in the sealed indictments were acting on orders from a Mexican cartel. It would not be inexpensive to support and provide funds for the alleged stalkers for 2 years. They even bought 2 vehicles in the US, some might say junkers, that wouldn't be noticed in their surveillance work.

Why did they stalk Guerrero Chapa for two years before he was killed. Surely that had earlier opportunities. What was going on behind the scenes?