DNA linked deportee to deaths

Gustavo Ramos-Martinez could not give up the United States.

His family was here. His opportunities were here.

So when he was deported five times to his native Mexico, he returned each time.

But because of his refusal to stay out of the land of the free, he's now linked to the brutal slayings of two elderly people and facing the prospect of losing his freedom forever.

Las Vegas cold case detectives connected the 31-year-old to the 1998 killings thanks to a DNA sample Ramos-Martinez gave last year while serving time in federal prison on an illegal immigration charge.

"That's the only way we got his profile," said Sgt. Jon Scott of the Metropolitan Police Department's Cold Case Detail. "It's just luck of the draw in a lot of cases."

Ramos-Martinez stands charged with two counts of murder with a deadly weapon, sexual assault with a deadly weapon, robbery with a deadly weapon and other charges in the deaths of 75-year-old Wallace Siegel and 86-year-old Helen Sabraw, who were found on back-to-back days in their assisted living home. The cases went cold soon after the May 1998 slayings, but police had several items from the scenes, including two shirts, that had potential DNA evidence on them.

In June 2009, cold case detectives submitted the shirts to the police crime lab for DNA testing. Those results were sent to the National DNA Index System, which last month found a match with Ramos-Martinez.

Attempts to reach the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency for comment were unsuccessful Friday, but court records and interviews with police show the match would likely never have been made if Ramos-Martinez had stayed in Mexico.

He was first deported in 1998 after pleading guilty to trying to stab his girlfriend in a drunken fight a month after the killings. His home at the time was an apartment complex at 1555 E. Rochelle Ave., less than a quarter-mile from the victims' assisted living home at 4255 S. Spencer St., near Flamingo Road and Maryland Parkway.

Ramos-Martinez was sentenced to five years' probation with a suspended prison term of one to four years.

After sentencing, he was handed to U.S. immigration officials, who sent him to Mexico on Oct. 14, 1998, according to federal court records.

He didn't wait long to return and was deported again on Dec. 15, 1999. Just five days later he was deported again.

Once again he crossed the border, only to be deported again Feb. 19, 2000.

Ramos-Martinez had worked in the drug trade for years on both sides of the border, usually as a "mule," Scott said.

He wasn't caught again until March 2006, when Nevada authorities arrested him on a probation violation warrant stemming from the 1998 case.

State probation and parole officials issued the warrant after he was deported that year, which his federal lawyers said was common practice if not a written policy.

A judge revoked Ramos-Martinez's probation and ordered him to serve his state prison sentence in May 2006. He served about 18 months before being transferred to federal custody to face a criminal charge of being in the country illegally.

Ramos-Martinez pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 25 months in federal prison. He was released and deported in September 2009, but not before providing a blood sample to federal authorities.

If Ramos-Martinez had stayed in Mexico even once after being deported, detectives would not have the all-important DNA sample that linked him to the slayings, Scott said.

After police received the positive DNA match, detectives found their suspect living in a southeast valley apartment complex. They arrested him and he was turned in to immigration authorities on Sept. 30. He was charged in the slayings Thursday.

"It was a combination of DNA tracking and just really good detective work," said Scott, who was taking a day off after the lengthy investigation.

"These detectives were like bloodhounds."

Contact reporter Brian Haynes at bhaynes@review journal.com or 702-383-0281. Contact reporter Mike Blasky at mblasky@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.