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In the 1970s and '80s, a monster hunted the Connecticut River Valley. Seven bodies found, one survivor, and no suspects.

I'm Jane Borowski, host of Invisible Tears. I was seven months pregnant and stabbed 27 times, and I survived.

My story didn't end that frightful night.

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To hear my story and others, you can find Invisible Tears wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. People don't realize how much it takes a toll on you not having your dad around in your life.

Mandy knows all too well what it's like to grow up without a dad. In 2002, her father, Ty Lopes, was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of 18-year-old Rene Ramis.

He was a really good parent to me. I think he was just a really good dad.

When she was little, Mandy's dad was one of the most consistent and supportive figures in her life. And then, one day, he was gone.

When was the first time you ever heard that your dad might have been suspected or When did I first hear?

When he was arrested. I went inside the house and everybody was watching TV and my mom was crying and it was my dad on the TV. It just said the suspect for the murder of Renee Ronis was caught.

That night, One of the first phone calls Ty Lopes made from jail was to his daughter.

My dad called me and said it was all a mistake. They're trying to accuse him, say that he killed Renee. He laughed. He's like, Can you believe that? And he's like, I'll be home later. That was it.

How old were you?

I was 13.

I I'm Susan Simpson.

And I'm Jacinda Davis.

I'm an attorney and investigator.

And I'm a true crime TV producer.

And this is Proof Season 2, murder at the warehouse. Proof is a red marble media production in association with Glassbox Media. For the past year, we've been re-investigating what happened after 18-year-old Renee Ramis went missing in the spring of 2000. This podcast tells the story of what our investigation uncovered.

New episodes are released on Mondays, and on Thursdays, you can catch our Sidebar episodes, where we talk about the case, talk to guests, and tell you more about what's going on behind the scenes. You can find additional materials about this case on our website at proofcrime com. This is episode 4. I'll be home later.

According to the detectives and prosecutors who investigated this case, Jake Silva and Ty Lopes killed Rene Ramis at a party being thrown by a bunch of high school students. Most of them were under 18, and some of them were as young as 14 years old. So how exactly does 33-year-old Ty Lopes fit into this picture? Why would he have been at a party with a bunch of teenagers? And why did investigators think that he would conspire with a teenage skateboarding crew to commit murder? We went to speak to Ty's family to find out more about him. So you're Ty Lopes' brother? Yes. Older, younger?

Younger, by six years.

That's Jared Lopes, Ty's younger brother. We met up with Jared at a noisy bar in Modesto and asked him what Ty had been like before his arrest.

He was usually just hanging around the house. He might be in the front yard talking to people, talking to neighbors. He pretty much knew everybody in the neighborhood. Anybody that would still talk to him, he would talk to. But he wasn't going places a lot because he didn't have a driver's license.

Jared described Ty as something of a gregarious homebody, always talking to people, but rarely leaving his mother's house where he was living at the time. Was this the Marion Street address? Yes. Who was living there at the time?

I would have been myself, my mother, my brother Ty. And my nephew, Robert.

Robert, or Robbie Mendoza, was Jake Silva's best friend. The two of them were close, and usually they were out skating the streets of Manteca together. But sometimes I'd hang out at Robbie's house on Marion Street. And once Jake started dating Renee, Renee would come along with him. Did you know Renee? Did you ever met her?

I'd only seen her at my mom's house once or twice. But again, the age difference, I didn't really bother paying any attention to her.

Jared didn't pay much attention to his nephew's teenage friends, but Ty would hang out with them sometimes because despite the age difference, they had a mutual interest: beer. Robbie and Jake were underage, Ty was not. So Ty would buy them booze, and in exchange, he'd get to help them drink it.

See, Ty, he was an opportunist. If he had beer, he wouldn't go out. If he didn't have beer, guys were like, Hey, if you buy us beer, he would have gone.

Ty didn't have a steady job. He worked sometimes, Jared told us, but usually he didn't. Mostly, Jared said, Ty just stayed at their mom's house and mooched off of her, which was one of the many things that annoyed Jared about his brother.

Ty could push buttons like nobody's business. He could figure you out and just annoy you to death.

The relationship between the two brothers was complicated even before Thai's arrest. And Jared is not interested in sugarcoating what he sees as Thai's many flaws.

Thai was just not smart. He was street smart, but he made one poor decision after another. And his heart was usually in the right place, but he just really didn't think things through. He'd give you the shirt off his back, but you'd have to ask him if it was really his shirt or if he stole it from somebody else.

Jared told us he does do not believe that Ty would have been involved in killing someone. At the same time, though, he said that when Ty got arrested for Renee's murder, it hadn't been shocking to him.

I was not real surprised given Ty's history from my earliest recollections. Obviously, I love him because he's my brother, but that was the extent of it because he caused so many problems.

A lot of people we spoke to held harsh opinions about Ty. But Jared told us there was one thing in Ty's life that he had genuinely excelled at.

He was a doting father. I mean, he was all about his daughter. He loved his daughter very much. Spent as much time with her as he could.

He was the best dad ever. My mom didn't even take care of me as much as he did.

That's Mandy Lopes again, Ty's daughter. Her mom and dad had a brief relationship. But from the beginning, Ty was always there for her.

My dad cooked me breakfast and made me brush my teeth and stuff like that. He was a parent, and he was a good person.

Mandy is her father's staunchest offender. She has never doubted his innocence. And besides, she told us, from what she understands, Ty had been with her when Renee was killed.

The time frame that they gave. It couldn't have been because I'm at his house seven o'clock at night on Friday, and I go home at seven o'clock on Sunday, and I was with him the weekend. And my dad doesn't ever leave me.

Ty had his daughter on Wednesday evenings, and then from Friday night to Sunday night. So if Renee had been killed the weekend before she was found, then Ty couldn't have done it, Mandy says. He would have been with her, not off at party at a construction site. Ty's sister, Elaina Mendoza, who is the mother of Jake's friend, Robbie Mendoza, was also living in the house on Marion Street at the time of Renee's disappearance.

To the best of my recollection, on the date that Rene was supposedly murdered, he was asleep. So walk me through that. What do you remember about his alibi, essentially?

During that particular time, I never saw him leave, and I would have heard him, but I don't remember the exact time of death or the date.

They never established an exact time, so it's hard.

Ty has no alibi. Neither does Jake for that matter, because no one knows when Renee was actually killed. The most specific the prosecution could get was to say that the party at Home Depot was held on an evening, sometime between Monday, which was Memorial Day, through the following Sunday. So to have an alibi, Ty and Jake would have needed to be able to prove their whereabouts for all six of those nights. Even without an alibi, though, Ty's daughter, Mandy, and his sister, Elaina, say they are certain he is innocent.

Do you know of any incidents of him being violent towards people?

Never. I've seen him get in a fight before. I've seen him get jumped before by six guys when I was little. He fights like a sissy. I've never seen him start something. But I mean, supposedly at a party and my dad sitting there raping everybody's friend right there, why didn't everybody jump in? Why didn't everybody help her?

Ty's brother, Jared, has a slightly different take on whether Ty was capable of violence.

Thai is all about huffing himself up, but which came to shove he was a coward.

Was he violent ever?

When When he was drunk, yes, he could be violent. But he wasn't hard to deal with. He was more talk.

So the investigators's determined was that he was involved in an organized mass rape and murder of Rene Ramos.

Yeah, that part of it, I don't believe at all. No. I could see him making advances when he was drunk on her. But if she turned him away, I don't see Ty as a rapist. He was a thief through and through, really. But a violent guy, no.

Mandy has grown up hearing people talk about what her dad was like, and most of them don't have nice things to say. So you know the rumors about people calling him a pervert and creepy?

Yeah, I've heard that. I've seen him checking girls out and stuff like that, but I've never seen him do anything offensive.

Does it bother you to hear that talk about your dad? Yes.

It does. My dad is a very sensitive subject to me.

I can tell you loved him a lot.

I do.

I wanted to give you the chance to defend your dad.

He might have been the troublemaker. He didn't watch his mouth at all and stuff like that, but he was not no killer. He didn't rape nobody. I know he didn't. My dad did drink, and then he wouldn't drink, and everything would be good and stuff. But when he did drink, he was just messy like that.

Ty could get messy, Mandy told us. And And Messy would certainly be one way you could describe Ty's relationship with law enforcement in Manteca.

Well, there was the case where he was beat up in the drunk tank by one of the detectives. He had said something about, Oh, how's your mom? She still live over there on such and such street. And that's what instigated the beating, is the detective took that as Ty making a threat on his mom.

We read that today.

Just before we met up with Jared, We'd actually been to the courthouse and seen records from the incident that he was talking about. So the report was that he threatened to rape the officer's grandmother, which is why the officer had to break Ty's jaw.

Yeah, the report says that- He had to He broke his jaw because there was a threat.

Ty threatened to rape his grandmother and said, I know where she lives. And the officer punched him and broke his jaw.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. I don't think there's anything in California Penal Code that says if somebody threaten to rape your grandma, you break their jaw.

Do you think Ty would have threatened to rape his grandma?

No, no. I think he could say something stupid. But I think knowing Ty as I do, that he was probably just really, Hey, how's your grandma who lives over da, da, da. Trying to make a connection. I'm sure they've known each other for years and years. I don't see Ty making a threat like that.

This messy record with the police is why when Ty was arrested for Renee's murder, Jared had not actually been surprised.

Well, I want to give you ladies, my take on it real quick without you asking the direct question. Ty was such a pain in the ass to the powers that be in that town for so long. Yeah. He had been told by the police that, We're going to nail you one of these days for something. We're going to make it stick.

In September of 2000, the Manteca police finally did nail Ty Lopes for something. He was arrested, along with Ray Goens and Jake Silva for the rape and murder of Rene Ramis.

Ty Lopes spent the next 18 months at the San Joaquin County Jail awaiting trial. Despite the murder charges hanging over him, Ty's family remembers that he was in relatively high spirits during this time.

He was just basically saying that he's going to come home, that they don't have anything on him. He was not worried about it. He was like, I'm for sure getting out.

I don't think he was afraid because prior to his arrest, he was actually acting as an informant.

He had been working with the PD to find who killed Renee, and he was utilizing that to stay out of jail.

So that's maybe why he kept up beat.

This was the first we'd heard anything about Ty being an informant for the Manteca Police Department and helping them with Renee's murder, no less. It was something we knew we'd have to look into. But Jared, Ty's brother, told us he did not doubt Ty's claims that he'd been acting as an informant for the Manteca PD before his arrest.

Ty had a big mouth. He'd tell you, Oh, yeah, I got busted for this DUI, but they let me off because I turned on these people here. So it was no It was a mystery whatsoever to me that Thai had been used as a CIA for Manteca PD many, many times. But he just antagonized them so many times.

Thai's big mouth and pension for antagonizing recognizing people would become a common theme in the criminal proceedings that followed his arrest. Like at the preliminary hearing when Josh Burrows was brought in to testify in the case for the very first time. Ty's daughter, Mandy, was there that day.

We all came back in from the recess, and my dad was walking in, and my dad's like, I don't know how to explain it. My dad's like a smart ass, I guess.

I don't understand.

But He walked past Josh Burrows, and so my dad starts walking all like, tough guy, right? And he's like, You effing lion punk to him.

This all took place while everyone was filing back into court before the hearing began. But as soon as court was in session, prosecutor Charles Schultz made a record of it. Your Honor, prosecutor Schultz said, something happened in the courtroom. Mr. Lopes walked started at Burrows, and spoke to him the words, You fucking lying punk. Mandy told us that later on, though, at Ty's trial, Schultz would tell this story a different way, changing the words Ty had actually used.

Schultz goes, He's threatening him. He's threatening him. He says, You're effing going down, punk. And they twisted that and used that against him in court that he threatened him and said that he was going down.

This outburst with Josh Burrows was not the only time that Ty seems to have undermined his own defense.

There is a moment in the trial when the judge addresses your dad and says, Mr. Lopes, you're your own worst enemy. Shut your mouth.

Yeah. I remember that.

What'd you think about that?

I don't think he's his own worst enemy, but he just says what he wants. He just can't keep his mouth shut when he has something to say.

In April 2001, while still in jail awaiting trial, Ty contacted Manteca's local newspaper and asked them to send a reporter out to talk to him. The paper quickly sent out reporter Kelly Gordon. The next day, Ty's mugshot was on the front page of the paper under the headline, DNA is my best friend. Murder suspect says DNA results will set him free. Ty Lopes is quoted in the article explaining why he's so certain he won't be convicted.

Lopes is certain the DNA results will clear his name, and he believes the DNA results will come back negative for Jake Silva and Ray Gones. Of course, the DNA will vindicate me, Lopes said. I am also very confident that it will clear Jake and Ray. I'll be completely flabbergasted if it comes back on Jake. There ain't going to be a trial. It won't even go that far. If the freaking criminal justice system works, I will be out of here.

Tye told the reporter that he had no doubts the results of the DNA testing would prove his case. But you have to think that's exactly what Detective Susan Wells must have been thinking, too. They must have thought that the DNA was their best friend. After all, they believe that Ty, Jake, and Ray had all taken turns violently raping Renee. If any case could be solved by DNA, surely it was this one. Investigators had sent samples from the rape kit and Renee's fingernails and clothes to the state crime lab. One year later, though, they were still waiting on the results.

On February fourth, the Minds of Madness is set to release an investigative four-part series centered on a cold case from nearly four decades ago. At first, it was just my mom's gone. And then it became your mom was taken by a Batman. They found videos video of him killing women. If you'd ever watched any episodes of Breaking Bad, that's exactly what you would see.

He buried these 11 women and kept going out there. He made a road going out there.

You got this dude saying, Hey, I'm going to show your family these pictures, and he's secretly taping her.

The cops don't care. We're nothing to them.

Dumped her like a piece of garbage. I don't see anything that screams, There's two people doing this. I never thought anything was going to come out of this case, ever. Listen to the Minds of Madness series, Who Killed Jennifer? Starting February fourth, wherever you get your podcasts. In the tradition of radio classics, here in tales of the Night, are stories, horrors, and legends that inhabit the streets of Mexico and Iberoamerica. The darkness of the most successful and acclaimed horror podcast across all categories in Latin America looms over you. Now in English, tales of the Night. Tune in now.

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After their arrests, Jake, Ty, and Ray all obtained or were appointed their own individual defense attorneys. And those attorneys brought on defense investigators to investigate the case for themselves. Well, actually, Jake's attorney never got an investigator, so there wasn't much investigation done on his behalf. But both Ray and Ty did have defense investigators who quickly got to work. And for both, step one had been to go talk to Josh Burrows for themselves. The following recordings are taken from the defense investigator's interviews with Josh in February and March of 2001.

Did you see her get killed? No. If I see her get killed, I could immediately call the police. I mean, that's fucked up. So I would report it with equipment. I Okay, now this is very serious. Do you have any idea who killed Rene Ramos? No, I don't. But I doubt that Jake did it. He went and dug.

Yes, Josh tells the defense teams. He'd given detailed statements to the police describing how he'd witnessed Rene's murder at the Home Depot. He just hadn't expected that the police would believe him.

I did hear about on the news that she was beating her rape. So I just told them that she was beating her rape. But I just thought about it off top of my head, like that, and I just flowed out. Okay, but were you a little bit concerned that the police were going to know that you didn't know what you were talking about. No, I wasn't concerned. I was going to be happy if they found it out so they can be like, Okay, we know that you didn't see anything, blah, blah, blah, going on with your life. I thought they'd see that the story that I told them was they can run me down.

If Josh Burrows had told the defense investigators that everything he'd said to the police had been a lie, then it's possible the case against Ty and Jake and Ray would have ended right there. It wasn't that simple, though.

Okay. Well, when you first got to the party, can you tell me how many people were there? Yeah, I'd say 20 to 45.

I Josh continued to insist that there really had been a party at Home Depot, although he also says it had nothing to do with Renee's murder. Renee went missing at the end of May, and this party, he says, was in March or April. Okay, so what exactly is Josh's story then? What is he saying actually happened on whatever night that whatever he's talking about took place? The answer is it depends on which of Josh's stories you're looking at. By the time trial rolls around, Josh has given at least 18 different statements, 10 to detectives, 8 to the defense, and every single one of those statements is different. Which one of those statements is Josh's real story. Which of those statements does the prosecution think is the truth? When Detective Souza and Wells testify at Jake's and Ty's trials, they present the jury with their preferred version of Josh's story. They do so by picking out brief snippets from across Josh's 10 different statements to them, mixing and matching his various claims and reassembling them into a single, relatively simple narrative. Actually, that's the same thing you've heard in this podcast so far. That's what we've done.

You've heard a collection of snippets from Josh's interviews, brief sound bites that we picked out and put in chronological order to present Josh's story to you in as concise and coherent a way as possible. But this The method of presenting Josh's story is inherently misleading. It creates the false impression that something called Josh's story exists when it doesn't. It's not just that Josh's 18 different statements contradict one another. It's that each statement contradicts itself, repeatedly, sometimes within the same breath. Rather than trying to explain what I mean by this, though, it's better just to let you hear it for yourself. You're going to We're now part of Josh's March 2001 interview with Ty Lopes' defense attorney, and we're going to play it in one mostly continuous block, albeit with some light editing still to remove some of the more repetitive tangents, just to make it a little bit less painful to sit through. Full disclosure, though, it's still painful to sit through. But stick with us here for a moment anyway. It's the only way to show you the reality of what investigators were dealing with when it came to Josh Burrows.

Who did you recognize among the people who were present inside the building when you got there? I recognized a couple of girls, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. But I recognized Jake, and I recognized Ray. Ty was there for a while when he got here and came back. Okay. I don't know for a fact if Ray was there or not. I just remember him being there. And you said Ty was there Did you know him very well as of the night of his Home Depot party? No. I didn't know him that good. I mean, I've seen him a couple of times. I'd say it was a couple of hairshaves about there. Now, you said he was there and he left to go get beer? Yeah, he went and got beer. Now that I think about it, nobody else was there that wanted to buy beer besides Chris. Chris was with me because nobody else was there that wanted to buy beer. I can't really figure out if... I know I think I've seen Ray there. How old is Ray? Ray? He's almost to buy beer. But I'm saying Ty because I really can't say for a fact that Ray is here.

All right. So Ty left and went to get beer. How long was he gone? That part I really don't know because I just I thought it my own that he went and got beer because nobody else would know. So you didn't see Ty leave, but you're assuming that at some point he left and went and got liquor? Yeah. Okay. Did you see him? Did you ever Did you ever see him come back? No. Did anything unusual happen at the party? Not that? I do not. Yeah, I saw Ray slap. I think it was... I don't can't... That's what's tripping me right now. Because I remember seeing Ray slap Renee, and I do remember seeing Jake and Tiger behind a wall. Would it be fair to say you saw Renee get slapped? You're sure? Yeah. I know for a fact she got slapped. What makes you think it was Ray Jones? I don't know. Whenever I think about that, his name just pops up in my head. Can you picture the slap in your mind? Kind of. I didn't actually see a slap by seeing a hand come back and then a face like that.

What type of lighting was there in the building?

A couple of people had flashlights, and we also had candles. Do you know why people brought candles? Just calling it a thing. I know there's part of energy there because there's people raving the candles slowly like that. That's what they do in rave parties when they get those little sticks and go like that. Actually, a lot of people take that to see and pay for you. I just assume that there's that feeling. Okay. I'll come back to that. Okay, so you saw what you think was Renee being slapped, and you think the person who slapped her was Ray Jones. Yeah. Did they yell or shout that you could hear or respond? No, I didn't hear anything. I heard an annoying wham-wham though. I heard an annoying wham-wham in my ears. It's hard to explain. When you get a bad migraine, it was wham-wham-wham.

For an attorney, a witness like Josh Burrows is a guaranteed headache. No matter what side of the case you're on, you know that this is not going to be a fun day at the office. Because what are you even supposed to do with a statement like this? For a prosecutor, Josh Burrows is not your first-round pick for star witness. But while not ideal, there is a way to make this work. The strategy is to acknowledge the witness's many lies while emphasizing that the spine of the story is still true. In most of Josh's statements, not all but most, Josh does describe going to a party at the Home Depot where he sees both tie lopes and Jake Silva. That, the prosecutor will say, is the core truth underneath the layers of lies. For a defense attorney, a witness like Josh is a nightmare in the opposite direction. Sure, you'll have no problem impeaching him and convincing the jury that he's a liar, but you're also left playing Whac-a-mole with someone's fever dream. When a story bends and twists in that many directions, you can't pin it down in a way to meaningfully refute it. For example, if the spine of Josh's story is that there really was a party at Home Depot with teenagers drinking and doing drugs and raving with candles, then how come no one at the Home Depot ever saw any sign of it?

Well, Josh can explain that one. There was no evidence of a party, he says, because someone told him that they'd give him a free bag of weed if he cleaned everything up.

Can you tell me who gave that baggy to you? I didn't know who was. They just said, Here's a bag of weed. Take this trash out. Here's. I was like, All right. He's just a complete stranger. Who did? Okay. He just came up to you out of the blue and said, Hey, I'll get some marijuana if you take the trash out. He did.

Josh says that he bagged up about 10 bags of trash in all. He didn't dispose of those bags all by himself, though. As he was walking out of the Home Depot, bags of trash in hand, he found some teenagers who were driving around in a gray Mustang with maroon-colored spots.

And there's also foals doing some wheelies. When you say these foals were doing wheelies, can you be more specific about that? Not really wheelies, but And by donuts, you mean they're driving around in circles and kicking up dust? Yeah. And you ask them to help you? Yeah. We did basically put in reverse, get the wheel stuck and have it kick it up, kick all the mud out. And then we just made a big hole.

Josh explains that he asked the guys in the maroon-spotted Mustang to help him dispose of the trash. They poured the remaining beer onto the dirt of the construction lot, and then they had the Mustang's tires spent out in the resulting mud until they dug out a pit that was deep enough to bury the trash from the party. So that's why no evidence of the party at Home Depot was ever found.

The clips you've heard so far in this episode all come from Josh's interviews with the defense teams. But to be clear, Josh's statements to Detective Souza and Wells were not any more coherent. For example, one of the key parts of Josh's story is how he saw Jake and Ty strangle Renee with her own bra. This becomes a crucial point at trial, because how could Josh have known Renee was strangled with her bra unless he'd seen it himself? But here's what Josh actually told the detectives. This is from a portion of Josh's interrogation, where the detectives are showing him a diagram of the outside areas around the home Depot, and he's pointing to the spots where people were hanging out when the murder happened.

Did they go inside Home Depot? I didn't see. But then I saw her her brawstrap Then- So who's the brawstrap? I don't know. I think it was hers. Then somebody came out yelling. She got strained and I was like, I don't know.

Okay, hang on.

Hang on here. You saw a bra strap over here? Over here. I saw something like that. I'm a little confused here, Josh. Was Renee struggling with these people?

No.

Why did her bra end up over here? No, over here. Okay. Inside? No. Right outside. Just right outside. How did that happen? It didn't just fall off. You saw a bra here? How did she get strangled with her bra strap if her bra was here and she's in here? Somebody came out yelling, saying she got strangled.

You might be wondering why Josh has constantly changing stories were not a problem for the prosecution? And the answer is, they were a problem, at least when it came to the case against Ray Gones. Josh has never been documented telling the same story twice. But even by Josh's standards, his stories about Ray are frankly a shit show. In some of Josh's stories, Ray is busy showing off skating tricks to Fuji while Renee is being strangled. Sometimes, Ray himself rapes and helps bury Rene. Sometimes, Ray isn't even at the Home Depot. But the day before the party, they were all hanging out at Fuji's place, and Josh saw Ray punch Rene in the face before forcibly abducting her by shoving her into the back seat of a white car and driving away, never to be seen again. These conflicting statements are probably why Renee's friends have never had a clear understanding of what Ray's involvement in the case had been. Here's what Renee's friend, Lori, told us when we asked her about Ray.

Refresh my memory. What was Ray Gomes? What was he in this his case.

He was the same as Ty.

So he was there when- Burro says that Ray was there when raped her. And this was all just from what Josh was saying, who was telling a different story every single time he told this story.

Yeah, this is all from Josh. Josh is the case.

But then they ended up letting Ray go.

They did.

In March of 2001, after Detective Souza and Wells learned that Josh has been talking to defense investigators, they go to interview Josh once again. And this time, Josh is adamant about one thing. I didn't see Ray there at the party. I just thought he might have been there, he says. So Ray deserves to be let go, but Jake and Ty deserve to stay in prison. We don't have a copy of the audio from this interview, but just from the black and white text of the transcript, you can feel how exasperated Susan Welles are with Josh. Why did you lie to us before? They ask him. I thought if I didn't tell you guys what you wanted me to say, I'd be in trouble, he answers. But we didn't want a bunch of lies, they respond. We wanted the truth. Well, this time I'm telling you the truth, Josh says. And the truth is, I never saw Ray at Home Depot. The detectives ask Josh, Okay, but if all of your previous statements were not true, then how do we know this statement this time is true. You don't, Josh tells them. Four days after this interview, prosecutor Charles Schultz went before the court and announced that as a result of unspecified information that had recently been brought to his attention, he was dismissing all charges against Ray Gones.

Ray left California and was never involved in the case again. He was not called as a witness at either of his former co-defendants' trials.

Months later, in October of 2001, the crime lab notified investigators that the DNA testing in the case had finally been completed. The results were overwhelming. For both the rape kit and the finger nail clippings, the only DNA had belonged to Renee herself. No sperm was found, and the only blood was Renee's. There was only a single item where the lab found DNA from someone other than Renee, and that was on the cuttings from Renee's underwear. There, they found sperm cells, which DNA testing showed had come from Jake Silva. But your DNA was found there?

Yeah.

Which is not surprising.

We're 18 years old living out of her car. That's all we did, was skate around and have sex. It would have been weird if it wasn't there.

If If Ray's or Ty's semen had been found in Renee's underwear, that would have pretty much conclusively linked them to her murder. But Jake was Renee's boyfriend. His DNA being found in her underwear just links him to being her boyfriend. There's no way to know when the DNA was transferred there. It could have been days or weeks or even longer before the murder took place. Because sperm and the DNA within them remains on clothing even after it has gone through multiple wash cycles. And Jake and Renee were living on the streets, so they weren't doing laundry all that often. Ty Lopes was right. Just as he had predicted, the DNA results did not link him to Renee's murder. But he was wrong about what that would mean. His confidence that that would vindicate him was misplaced. Because the DNA evidence, or rather the lack thereof, changed nothing. And in March 2002, Ty Lopes on trial for murder. On a hot summer night in 1988, Jane Borowski was stabbed 27 times by an unknown man. She was seven months pregnant.

My name is Jane Borowski. I survived, and I remember everything.

Jane is the lone survivor of the Valley killer who proud the borderland of Vermont and New Hampshire and murdered at least eight other women. I'm your host, Jennifer Amell, and this is Dark Valley. Jane and I didn't set out to solve this, but in the course of a two-year investigation, this happened. You know, the police aren't going to be happy with me sharing this.

Not about secrets anymore. It's not about hiding.

Connecting this person not only to my sister's murder, but to the other murders as well. Join the search for America's unknown serial killer. Subscribe to Dark Valley and binge the entire 12 episodes of Season 1.

Have you ever wondered what it's like to witness a murder?

Forrest grabbed the knife and then just stabbed Johnny in one motion.

Or how it feels to be shot.

I was immediately hit by a barrage of bullets.

Or how you would react if your spouse hired someone to kill you.

And he was to put me in a grave with a bullet wound on my head.

These are the stories you'll hear on the podcast called What Was That Like? True stories told by the actual person who went through it. You'll hear from us stalking victim.

Came back upstairs, and when I came back and turned the corner into my room, I saw him standing there.

You'll hear from a man who was kidnapped and tortured. I would do anything, say anything, to simply get away. And you'll hear actual 9 One One calls. Take a deep breath. Take a deep breath. Oh my God. Take a deep breath. Oh my God. Take it deep. Oh my God. Real people in unreal situations. Search for whatwasthatlike on any podcast app or at whatwasthatlike. Com. I'm Andrew Gold, a fallen BBC journalist, interviewing the heretics and rebels brave enough to speak out against mainstream narratives. Here's Coleman Hughes, Jon Ronson, and the Triganometry podcast guys bringing controversy to the fore. How do you feel if a person a different race, moved in next door.

I spent a while with a politically correct faction of the Ku Klux Klan.

The system punishes people for wrongthink. It's heartbreaking. Here's my unorthodox life Netflix star Julia Hart on getting out of a Hasidic Jewish cult. Why can't I be okay with being silent and subservient? Everyone else is.

I'm biologist Richard Dawkins on trans activism.

It's perfectly legitimate to say, I'm a man, but I feel feminine. But to then say, Therefore, I am a woman, is a betrayal of language. Now it's your turn.

Rebell against the mainstream and find a home in this sensible alternative space by subscribing to Heretics podcast. Did you go to Ty's trial?

The only thing that really sticks out is that when he walked in, he turned around and he looked at all of us and he was smiling.

Renee's friend, Lorri, attended both Ty's and Jake's trials at the San Juanquine County Courthouse. Ty's trial was first, and Laurie's clearest memory from it is not the witnesses who testified or the evidence that was presented. What stands out the most to her is Ty himself.

He looked at Renee's mom and all of us girls, and he was just smiling at us. I remember it enraged me because in my head, I was just like, Why are you looking at us? Don't even look at us. It pissed me off. I was so mad.

When Lori told us about Ty smiling at them at trial, I was reminded of what Ty's brother had told us about the police officer who had broken his jaw. Jared thought Ty must have said something to the police officer like, Hey, how's your grandma who lives over on such-and-such street? Trying to establish a connection with him to show the officer that he was friendly with that officer's family. But the police officer had not taken this as a friendly gesture, and neither had Renee's friends and family when Ty smiled at them in the courtroom.

At Jake's trial, which was held nine months later, there were dozens of witnesses that the prosecutor could call to talk about Jake, but those witnesses were of no use at Ty's trial. If the prosecutor had tried to put them on the stand, well, here's what they would have had to say about him.

I didn't even know what that dude, Ty, looked like. I had never heard of his name before.

When Ty Lopes came into that whole scenario, I didn't even even know who the hell he was.

I was like, Who's this dude?

That was so out of left field that this some 30-year-old guy is hanging around a bunch of 17, 18-year-old kids. What about Ty?

I couldn't tell you anything. He's just some creepy 33-year-old I guess everybody hung out with but me.

Aside from Robbie, who was Thai's nephew, and Jake, who knew Thai through Robbie, most of the teenagers in this case had no idea that Thai existed. In fact, the only witnesses against Thai who actually knew him were the police officers who arrested him. Here's Detective Tony Souza from when he was on real interrogations.

I've known him since he was a little kid. We were in Cubscouts together.

He went to school with my wife and my sister.

At the time of Ty's arrest, Josh Broze was the only witness that could link Ty to Renee's murder. After Ty's arrest, though, detectives were able to find two more witnesses they could use against him. Two men came forward to say that Ty had confessed to them that he'd committed the murder. Both men had been at the San Joaquin County Jail at the same time as Thai. And at trial, both informants described how on separate occasions, Thai had approached each of them and told both of them that he needed to confide in someone he could trust. Both informants said Thai told them he'd been present when the girl was killed. And one of them said, Thai also told him that he'd raped her.

Now, just as a reminder, However, jailhouse informants are notoriously unreliable. Anytime you hear about a jailhouse confession, skepticism is warranted. Both of these informants were given deals that allowed them to avoid years in prison in exchange for their testimony. And although both informants had been facing long prison sentences, both had already been released from jail even before Thai's trial began. And the stories from these informants contain curious details that might raise questions as to how accurate they really are. When we saw the trial testimony from these informants, we knew that we'd have to talk to them for ourselves to find out what was going on. But at trial, these informants were crucial evidence for the state because they were used to prove Josh Burrows had been telling the truth. One of the informants said that Ty had bragged to him that police would never find evidence implicating him in the murder because he'd had a 14-year-old boy clean up the entire crime scene. This matches what Josh Burrows said he'd done at the Home Depot. Burrows. That informant also told investigators that Ty said Renee had been drugged with ecstasy before she was assaulted, which matches, well, matches, what Josh said about how people at the party had been holding up candles and spinning them around as if they were high in ecstasy.

While the Jailhouse informants were helpful for the prosecution, Josh Burrows was always the heart of the case. Whether Ty would be found guilty or innocent would depend on whether the jury believe Josh's story about the party at Home Depot. But what version of Josh's story did the jury actually hear? After all, there were at least 18 different versions to choose from. So which one was the jury told about? Renee's friend, Laurie, told us the version of Josh's story that she remembered hearing about at trial.

What came out in trial was that Renee was last seen at Home Depot with Jake and Ty. Jake and Renee were arguing.

They were fighting, and everybody was going to leave, but they were left behind.

I feel like it was Josh Burrows that said that.

Actually, it wasn't Josh Burrows who said that. What Lori is remembering here is what Detective Souza and Welles said at trial when they were summarizing Josh's statements to them. Here's Kevin reading the trial transcript from when Detective Susan was asked who Josh Burrows told them was at the party when Renee was killed.

Question. And Josh said that there were a lot of Renee's friends that were there, too. Detective Souza, yes, earlier on in the party, there were.

Detective Sousa implies that Josh told them Renee's friends had left the party before things turned violent. But Josh never told the detectives that. In his recorded interrogations, Josh tells them that Renee's friends were still there at the party when Jake began strangling her. And as for what Josh said at trial, well, here's what his testimony his testimony about Renee's murder actually sounded like. Do you remember him saying, I'm lying, though? I don't remember now. His actual testimony was, I lied, I made it all up.

Oh, maybe I do remember that.

On the stand, he was like, No, it's a lie. It's all a lie. All a lie. Made it all up. It's a lie. At Ty's trial, Josh testified that everything he'd told the detectives was, quote, bull crap, and that everything he'd said in the case from day one had been lies. When he was asked, If you said it, It was a lie, wasn't it? Josh's response was, Well, duh. And prosecutor Charles Schultz agreed that Josh had told a lot of lies. The only time Josh told the truth, Schultz said, was when he talked to Detective Susan Wells. Everything else Josh had said before and after that had been a lie, but what he told the detectives was true. As for why Josh had lied at trial when he denied seeing Renee's murder? Well, Schultz could explain why he'd done that.

Remember what Had he told us about how Schultz had twisted Ty's words and used them against him at trial? Well, she's not wrong about that. Transcripts from the pre-trial hearing show that when Ty saw Josh in court, he said to him, You fucking lying punk. But in closing arguments, Schultz told the jury that Ty had said to Josh, You're going down punk. The reason Josh had lied on the witness stand was simple. Josh had been scared of Ty because Ty had threatened his life. This, Schultz said, show that Ty wasn't mad because Josh was telling lies about him. It showed that Ty was mad because Josh was telling the truth about him, and that Ty needed to shut Josh up.

Here's what Schultz said in his closing arguments about why we know Josh really did witness Renee's murder.

Renee was strangled with her bra. Josh watched them reach down and strangle her with her bra, and then her bra is found up around her neck with her shirt. Is this just coincidence, him describing this scene like this? How can you come to any other conclusion except Josh was there, that he saw this? He saw this woman get murdered. He saw this woman get raped. He saw this. This is what he describes.

Josh, knowing that Renee was strangled with her bra, could be evidence that he'd witnessed the murder. If, in fact, Renee had been strangled with her bra. But is that really what happened?

So what I remember after the trials was she was strangled with her necklaces.

Do you remember her being strangled with her necklaces? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yes.

It was ligature marks on her neck from her her necklaces. It's not what they said at trial. Really? At trial, they pushed very hard. She was strungled with her bra because boroughs- Why do I remember necklaces?

I don't know. I heard necklaces.

The medical examiner said the necklaces?

Oh, maybe.

But the prosecutor and Burrows always say bra. But her bra didn't have any sign of tears or stretching or anything. Oh, okay.

So they're probably making this up just from what they read in the paper, possibly.

It was a rumor. It's what Josh Burrows says, what he around town. Oh.

It's just a mess.

The medical examiner found three ligature marks around Renee's neck that corresponded with the three hip necklaces she was wearing. But if Renee wasn't strangled with her bra, then why did Josh tell the detectives that's what he saw?

During trial, there was a testimony from someone who had worked with Josh, who had evaluated him and said he's a compulsive liar.

Oh, I feel like I do remember that.

Even when it doesn't benefit him, he's like, I've never met anyone like this. He doesn't lie just to make himself look better, to benefit him. He just lies.

He just can't help him.

Yeah, I've known people like that.

As far as murder trials go, the state's case against Ty Lopes was not a particularly strong one. There was Josh, who even the prosecutor acknowledged was a liar who never told the same story twice. And there were the two men who'd been in jail with Ty, who were given generous plea deals in exchange for testifying that Ty had confessed to them. But there wasn't really anything else. In the end, though, it turned out that that was enough. After four days of deliberations, the jury returned its verdict. Guilty on one count of first-degree murder and guilty on one count of forcible rape.

I just don't understand, how did these two men get convicted with no real evidence and only a witness who is a compulsive liar keeps changing their story. How does that happen?

We would like to talk to the jurors to see what they found to be the most compelling Right.

What did they decide? What made them really say, Okay, this is it. Yes, for sure.

In California, the names of jurors are kept secret. So usually it's not possible to find out why a jury reached the verdict it did. But after Ty's trial, two of the jurors agreed to speak to reporters. They are quoted in articles about Ty's conviction, explaining what it had been that convinced them of his guilt.

Two jurors said after Tuesday's verdict that they believe Burrows saw the killing. The testimony of Joshua Burrows corroborated so much with the pathologist's testimony on how she died. You just could not overlook that, jury four woman Robin London said. Jury Timothy Crawford also also said Burrows' description of the slang matched the forensic evidence. The prosecution beefed up its case against Lopes with testimony from two jailhouse informants who said Lopes told them about the assault on Ramus. Quote, Ty Lopes' own mouth convicted him, police Detective Kevin Wells said, adding that he hopes others who attended the party will come forward.

Three months after his conviction, Ty Lopes back in court once again, this time for his sentencing hearing. There was no uncertainty over what would happen that day. Under California law, Ty would be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. And although the outcome was already a foregone conclusion, at a sentencing hearing, Thai was given an opportunity to address the court directly and speak on his own behalf. We asked Mandy if she'd read us a portion of what her father told the court that day.

I'm telling the truth. I'm an innocent man I have been wrongfully convicted, and I believe with all my heart, Jake is too. He's innocent. I've seen his video statements. He's telling the truth. I did not have anything to do with Renee's murder. Please Please give me another chance to prove that. Please help me. Find who killed Renee, please. To my family, if I'm sentenced right now, keep your heads up. You know I'm innocent, all of you. Keep your heads held high. Where is Mandy? Mandy, you stay strong, baby. Daddy is going to get home. He's going to fight, okay? Your daddy's coming home. Okay, baby. I promise you that. He used to always say stuff like that.

Ty Lopes turned out to be wrong about that, though. He never will be coming home. He was murdered by his cellmate on Halloween Day in 2011. His case and his story ended there. Next week on Proof.

I think Shultz, the prosecutor, has to be thinking, If I convicted Ty on this, it's a slam dunk against Jake.

Yeah, because now I've got the boyfriend.

Were you confident the jury was going to convict him?

I wasn't confident in anything.

That The entire time, I felt completely lost.

Did you ever hear anything about another pregnancy?

When she was killed, supposedly she was two months pregnant.

This report says, I asked Louis to better describe the incident of violence between Renee and Jake. Louis stated that he heard Jake yelling at Renee, and that this is when he heard Jake tell Renee, I'll kill you, bitch. He said that Renee replied, I love you, Jake.

You've been listening to Proof, a podcast by Red Marble Media, in association with Glassbox Media. We'll be back next Monday with episode 5. Send us your questions and comments at proofcrimepod@gmail. Com. We'll respond during our bonus episode, Proof Sidebar, on Thursdays. Kevin Fitzpatrick is our executive producer. Our logo was designed by Drew Hasausky, and our theme music by Ramiro Marquez. Audio production for this episode is by Michael Yulitowski. Our social media manager is Skyler Park. And thank you to our sponsors who make this podcast possible. Follow us everywhere with the handle @proofcrimepod. Com. And on our website, proofcrimepod. Com.

And lastly, a note to our listeners. If you have any information related to this case, we'd love to speak to you. No matter how small a detail it may seem, it just might be more important than you realize. You can reach us by email or leave us a voicemail at 929-267-3172.

That's all for this week. Thanks so much for listening.