New information sheds light on Susana de Jesus' abduction
When Brazoria County Sheriff’s detectives first began investigating the mysterious abduction of Susana de Jesus, they quickly thought they had a motive.
Four days later, they made a move to reassure the public, implying the attack might not have been random.
They suspected the motive was a dispute over her late husband’s life insurance policy.
But now a month has passed since de Jesus vanished from the parking lot of a Pearland shopping center, and the leads in the case have turned up empty.
Two men were questioned, but investigators said their DNA was not found in de Jesus’ abandoned Cadillac.
The whole thing started with the 911 call from de Jesus’ coworker, which came in more than an hour after the abduction.
The coworker said de Jesus was taken by an armed, masked man at 9:16 p.m.
But there’s more to that story—de Jesus made two phone calls after she was kidnapped.
At 9:55 p.m., de Jesus called her sister, asking her to tell their mother that she would be late, and that she had to give a coworker a ride home.
At 10:05 p.m., de Jesus made a cryptic phone call to a friend. She asked the friend if someone would still be able to find her if she hadn’t paid her OnStar bill.
That call was traced to a cell phone tower on top of the Astrodome, indicating de Jesus and her kidnapper may have been somewhere around the South Loop.
At 10:31 p.m., the suspect was caught on camera using de Jesus’ ATM card to withdraw money at a bank on Old Spanish Trail.
Around 1 a.m., de Jesus’ sister started to worry and went to HPD’s Mykawa police station to file a missing persons report.
At 2:40 p.m. OnStar began tracking de Jesus’ Cadillac, but Brazoria County detectives didn’t find out about that until much later. OnStar said the car was traveling northbound on Highway 225, driving back toward Houston from the La Porte area.
At 3:26 a.m., the suspect is caught on camera buying food at a Whataburger on West Airport. He stayed there for 14 minutes.
On the tape, the suspect is never seen using his left arm. He is still wearing a glove and appears to have a distinctive nose.
At 4:58 a.m., OnStar located de Jesus’ car, and her sister and a friend rushed to an apartment complex at 6363 West Airport.
At 7:02 a.m., the friend said he saw a black man getting out of de Jesus’ Cadillac at the complex. De Jesus’ sister called 911.
By the time police arrived, the suspect was gone.
Police sources told 11 News and the Laura Recovery Center that a number of things were recovered from de Jesus’ car, besides DNA.
Police said they found money and a gun, which was traced back to three home invasions in the Pearland area.
Those crimes happened before de Jesus disappeared – one of them on the same day of her abduction.
http://www.khou.com/news/local/stories/khou090305_tnt_susana-de-jesus.650a987.html
Prayers to her family and friends.
