A convicted child rapist and murderer — connected to multiple cold cases — was arrested this week after the man confessed to the crimes, according to Texas police.
Raul Meza Jr. was identified as a person of interest when Pflugerville police conducted an investigation into the stabbing death of his 80-year-old roommate Jesse Fraga on May 20.
Meza was reportedly seen driving Fraga’s gray Toyota Tundra.
After police obtained an arrest warrant, Meza, 62, called the Homicide Division of the Austin Police Department with a chilling message.
“My name is Raul Meza, and you’re looking for me,” Austin Police Detective Patrick Reed recalled during a press conference.
Meza then allegedly confessed to the killings of Fraga and a female in 2019 after providing information never released to the public.
“I got out (of prison) in 2016, I end up murdering a lady soon afterward,” Reed recalled Meza saying.
During a welfare check on May 20, Pflugerville police discovered Fraga inside a closet with a belt around his neck along with knives and blood around the home.
The Travis County Medical Examiner said Fraga died from a puncture wound and a severed cervical spine,” according to an affidavit obtained by KVUE.
Fraga met Meza in the 1990s when the latter was out on parole and Fraga was an adult probation officer trying to help rehabilitate the con, the outlet reported.
Meza was arrested and is being held on four charges including one capital murder charge, a felony for Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle, and two undisclosed 1st-degree felonies.
Police said Meza had bags of zip ties, duct tape and rounds of ammo during his arrest.
“(US Marshals) approached, surrounded him, and then took them into custody within a blink of an eye. And I think that was a key advantage based on what was in that bag,” Deputy US Marshal Brandon Filla said at the press conference.
Over the last 50 years, Meza has racked up an extensive rap sheet.
He was first arrested and charged with the aggravated robbery of an Austin convenience store clerk in 1975, according to KXAN.
Meza was sentenced to 20 years in jail but only served five years.
In Jan. 1982, Meza, still on parole for his robbery arrest, was charged with raping and murdering eight-year-old Kendra Page, before dumping her body into an elementary school’s dumpster.
Meza was found guilty to the charges, and was sentenced to 46 years in prison, but was released only 11 years into his sentence for “good behavior,” before being sent back to jail for violating his parole in 1994.
“Here’s a serial killer that justice was not served. It was a travesty of justice,” said Interim Assistant City Manager Bruce Mills, the main detective during the 1982 murder investigation.
Meza would be in and out of jails, having trouble finding a job, one of his parole conditions, before finding himself a home in 2012, next door to Gloria Lofton, a 66-year-old woman, Meza would confess to murdering in 2019.
The 2019 slaying of Lofton was never officially solved, as Austin police ruled the death as “undetermined” before a DNA profile from the scene matched Meza in 2020, but Meza was never sought in the case.
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