Report of video
Tia Downour, an associate of Ruiz, said she watched the beginning of a troubling video on Ruiz's mobile phone in May at the Bel-Aire Motel.
Downour told investigators the video showed the killing of Saunders and that she was able to look at it while Ruiz was in the bathroom.
“Downour said she watched for a few seconds until Saunders began to scream,” Bethany police Lt. JR Jencks wrote in the affidavit.
The woman would also say that Ruiz was “the person in the video cutting off the foot of Saunders,” Jencks wrote in the affidavit.
Confidential witnesses in the case have painted a picture of a criminal organization that wanted to show what happens to people who don't cooperate.
One confidential witness told investigators that she was kidnapped and forced to watch the Saunders slaying.
Massey also shared details about the slaying with two men while in county jail, telling one he and Ruiz “cut the girl's arms and legs off” and passing the other handwritten notes describing what parts of the “woman's body were dismembered, and perhaps more importantly, how the body was wrapped before disposal,” according to court documents.
CONTRIBUTING:
Staff Writer Tim Willert
