My heart breaks for the family of Crystal and Stephanie Houston. They lost both Crystal and Stephanie to evil men, only a year apart. Stephanie was the first to die, when her boyfriend ran her over. A year later, Crystal was found in her Socorro trailer, raped and strangled. Police refused to investigate due to the presence of drugs in Crystal’s system. Their father, Bill Houston, never gave up fighting for his girls.
Stephanie Houston
Stephanie Houston was 28 and had her life together. She was kind and loving, she had a long-term boyfriend Patrick Murrillo, she was raising a ten-year-old, and she managed a gas station. Behind closed doors, though, she and Patrick Murrillo had a tumultuous relationship with lots of arguing. Stephanie knew she deserved better and she wanted to leave, but as any victim of domestic violence knows, it’s not so easy to just pick up and go when the man you are with might kill you.
On February 27, 2000, Stephanie was run over on a dark stretch of highway outside of Belen, NM. She was rushed to the hospital but died en route and was declared DOA (dead on arrival). The office of the medical examiner determined her death to be a homicide.
The night before she died, Patrick played at a bar with his band. Stephanie danced with a guy named Reuben. Patrick was furious with her for this and they argued about it. Patrick ended up attacking Stephanie and bouncers had to remove him from the bar.
His band played the bar again the next night and Reuben attended again and Patrick attacked him. Again bouncers intervened. Reuben left for a while, returned, and found Patrick and Stephanie gone. He took off and saw Patrick’s truck and trailer full of band equipment down the highway, pulled over on the side of the highway. The truck’s tail lights suddenly turned on and the truck lurched forward really fast, running over Stephanie. Patrick then stopped, got out, and knelt by Stephanie, saying, “What shall I do now?”
Reuben panicked and stopped to offer his cell phone for 911. Patrick did call 911, but later told friends he had planned to leave the scene. The only reason he didn’t was because people saw him.
The state police who investigated evidently had their own personal issues with domestic violence. Sgt. McCracken was under investigation for the suspicious death of his wife. His deputy was being sued for helping cover up his wife’s death. They are the ones who interviewed Patrick that night.
It makes sense that they then let Patrick go after he told them the unlikely story that he and Stephanie were fighting and he went to drive away and leave her on the side of the road, when she tried to jump into the bed of his truck. He claimed that she slipped and he accidentally ran over her head with his trailer. Not only did his story not fit the crime scene evidence, but it just doesn’t make sense logically. But the cops didn’t arrest Patrick and they also let him take all of Stephanie’s affects, including her keys.
Later, they didn’t do a crime scene reconstruction or thoroughly inspect Patrick’s truck. They barely looked at the right tire, under which he claimed Stephanie had slipped. Based on this total lack of investigation, they said that everything fit his claims.
The cops also claimed that Stephanie was falling down drunk. In reality, Stephanie’s toxicology report indicated she had consumed only one beer.
When Stephanie’s parents gained access to her apartment later, they found it had been ransacked. There was no sign of forced entry, leading them to believe it had been ransacked by none other than Patrick, possibly trying to cover up evidence of Stephanie’s abuse. He was the only one they knew of who had a key and would do something like that to Stephanie’s place.
After Stephanie died, her parents began to learn of her horrific private life with Patrick. He had given her many concussions and strangled her with a phone cord once. He liked to drop her from his truck in the boonies and make her walk. She didn’t tell people about her abuse because she was scared and ashamed. Two days prior to her death, she had begun to look into getting a restraining order against Patrick. She confided in her pastor a lot about the things she endured in private with her boyfriend.
Patrick already had a new girlfriend by the date of Stephanie’s funeral, which he didn’t attend. He seemed cheerful after her death and never expressed guilt or grief. That seems pretty weird for someone who supposedly loved her. Her father is convinced that Patrick is guilty. So is everyone else who knows the story, including me.
For unclear reasons, Patrick was exonerated for vehicular homicide in 2004. The jury never saw evidence like how Patrick beat Stephanie or how she was seeking an order of protection. Patrick stays out of the spotlight and doesn’t have a Facebook. Now, because of double jeopardy, he can’t be charged again and there’s no chance of getting justice for Stephanie.
Stephanie was a victim of domestic violence and its horrific crescendo. She deserved better.
Crystal Houston Calderella
Crystal Houston lived in Socorro. She was only 24 when she died. Based on her photos, she was a real beauty who looked a lot like her sister Stephanie. She had one child and everyone who knew her said she was truly kind, loving, and fun. She always had a smile and a warm greeting for everyone.
After Stephanie died, Crystal took it hard. She started using drugs and partying to self-medicate and cope with the grief. This is how she met Ramon Lopez. She invited him into her trailer with his friend Greg Romero to do drugs and party. She didn’t think this worthless thug would beat, rape, and strangle her to death.
When nobody heard from Crystal for several days, they checked on her in her trailer. They found her lying on her back, with her shirt pulled over her face and her sweats and panties around her thighs. She had been beaten and her throat bore signs of strangulation, her legs were bruised, and her head had been hit with a blunt object. Her autopsy determined that she had been struck in the back of the head, then beaten, strangled, and raped. Yet the report ruled her cause of death as “undetermined,” not homicide, because of the presence of drugs and alcohol in her system.
She had laid there in her trailer on Spring Street in Socorro for two days. She had last been seen on April 13. During this time, Ramon Lopez had been walking around Socorro without a care. Then he stole her teal Honda Civic and driven it to Albuquerque, where he had tried to cash some checks in Crystal’s name. Eventually, he got the car impounded. At no point did he ever show any remorse for what he had done.
The only way he was caught was because his friend, Greg Romero, told his friend, Barbara Olguin, about what he had seen Lopez do.
The greatest injustice to these women was the way their cases were swept under the rug. Police initially deigned to investigate young Crystal’s death as a murder due to the fact she had drugs in her system. Excuse me? It took years of pressure from Crystal’s father, Bill Houston, and his private investigator, Mike Corwin, for her case to be looked at again by law enforcement as a murder. Finally, Lopez was arrested for holding up a Target. His image was broadcast on TV. A detective on Crystal’s case recognized his picture and arranged for him to be prosecuted for Crystal’s murder.
Lopez was fortunately convicted by a jury to life in prison without possibility of parole in 2006. But he appealed and got his sentence reduced to 15 years. And then he was released in 2015. So he served nine years of a life sentence for raping and murdering a twenty-four-year-old mother. He basically didn’t do any time at all for what I consider the worst crime one can commit.
Then he committed another act of domestic violence against another woman and wound up in prison again. But at the time of this writing, he is free, meaning he is able to hurt more women. I looked him up on the Department of Corrections and it doesn’t even list him as being on parole or probation. Amazing!
Men like Lopez don’t respect or care about women and they don’t stop mistreating them. Who knows how many more women Ramon Lopez will hurt or even kill? And where is the justice for Crystal? Her family must be sick that her killer is free.
In this blog post, Bill writes about his journey fighting for justice for Crystal and his relief when Ramon was convicted. It makes me sick that his daughter’s murderer is walking free. At least Bill can sleep at night knowing that he tried his best for his little girl, though. The New Mexico justice system failed both of his daughters, though.
All I can say is, those poor girls and that poor family. It is so sad that their kids must grow up without their mothers and their parents must grow old without their daughters. I think Stephanie and Crystal are both examples of how women are often treated like trash in our society, and how New Mexico police don’t seem to value New Mexican women as human beings at all. The justice system here is seriously corrupt and rigged against women, as many of the cases I write about prove.
Sources
http://www.realcrimes.com/C.Houston/Crystal_Houston.htm
https://vimbuzz.com/stephanie-houston-murder-where-is-patrick-murillo-now
https://www.monstersandcritics.com/tv/crystal-houston-was-raped-and-murdered-by-ramon-lopez
https://thecinemaholic.com/crystal-houston-calderella-murder-where-is-ramon-lopez-now
https://spikytv.com/crystal-houston-calderella-murder
http://realcrimes.com/Houston/Stephanie_Houston.htm
https://thecinemaholic.com/stephanie-houston-murder-where-is-patrick-murillo-now