Juan Segundo (murderer)


Juan Ramon Segundo Meza is an American serial killer and rapist who was sentenced to death for the 1986 murder of Vanessa Villa, 11, in Fort Worth, Texas. He was also linked to three other murders committed between September 1994 and June 1995 by DNA, all in the Fort Worth area. Segundo was arrested in 2005 after he was matched to DNA samples from three cold cases, including Vanessa's, and was sentenced to death in 2007.

Murder of Vanessa Villa

Vanessa Villa was an 11-year-old girl living in Fort Worth with her mother and two siblings at the time of her death. She was regarded as being hard-working in school, despite not having mastered English, and was well liked by the staff there. On the day of the killing, a Sunday, she had gone to a Dallas flea market where she worked before returning home later in the day. She also purportedly refused dinner that night, claiming that she "wasn't hungry". Vanessa had expressed fear at the conditions of Fort Worth, particularly with the high crime rate in her area of the city, having once written a letter to her mother asking that she "take from this place".
Late that night, Segundo broke into the family home, raped and strangled Vanessa, and then fled. Vanessa was pronounced dead in the early hours of August 4, aged 11. The following Sunday, August 10, the family held a wake for Vanessa at the family home. Segundo, a family friend, is alleged to have attended the ceremony. He was among the many questioned in Vanessa's death, however he was cleared of any wrongdoing. Vanessa's mother had allegedly defended Segundo in the face of such allegations, claiming he was "not the type" to have killed Vanessa.

Subsequent assaults and murders

Segundo's next known crime took place on October 6, 1987 when an unnamed woman woke up to find herself being fondled by him. Once the victim realized what was occurring, Segundo physically assaulted her before fleeing once the woman's daughter woke up. The victim identified Segundo as a former coworker, and in June 1988 he was sentenced to 10 years for burglary of a dwelling in connection with the incident. Segundo was paroled in July 1989, likely due to prison overcrowding.
In addition to this incident, among others, Segundo was also linked to three cold case murders by DNA. The three killings took place over the course of 9 months in the mid-1990s.
In early 2005, Fort Worth forensic investigators matched DNA left at the scene of Vanessa Villa's murder to Segundo's DNA profile. As a result, Segundo was arrested on April 19. He was regarded by prosecutors and investigators alike as being unwilling to talk, particularly on cases other than Villa's, in which cases he would often refuse interviews. Segundo was found guilty of the charges against him in relation to Villa's murder in December 2006, and he was sentenced to death on February 15, 2007.
Segundo's final appeal to the US Supreme Court was denied in February 2017. On May 16, 2018, during the press debrief following the execution of San Antonio murderer Juan Castillo at the Huntsville Unit, Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel announced that two inmates from Fort Worth, namely Segundo and Kwame Rockwell, had been given execution dates for October 2018.
Segundo is housed at the Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, the primary location of the state’s male death row. He was scheduled to die by lethal injection on Wednesday, October 10, 2018, at the Huntsville Unit, but this execution date was stayed by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on October 5, 2018, because of concerns about the methods used to detect intellectual disability in Texas.