Somebody Knows Something (2026) s01e05 Episode Script

[person 1] Oh.
[person 2 chuckles]
[gunshots]
[news reporter 1]
Elizabeth Barraza's execution-style murder
has investigators puzzled.
They have a critical clue:
surveillance video showing what happened
in this front yard.
[news reporter 2] No suspect
has ever been named
nor has one ever been ruled out.
[Chamberlain]
Since 2019, the true crime community
has been baffled by Liz Barraza's murder,
caught on camera in her own driveway.
And it's been seven years. No arrests.
[Chamberlain]
The question on everyone's minds is,
"Who would possibly want to kill Liz?"
I mean, it's so shocking.
Her main interests were
Harry Potter and Star Wars.
[person 1] You hear the gunshots,
you hear her scream.
[crying] And I was like,
"What is going on?"
If you wanna commit the perfect murder,
this was it.
Somebody wanted her dead.
I don't know why.
We were able to discover that Liz had
a half-a-million-dollar
life insurance policy.
I've looked around at all of my friends
and wondered,
"Could it have been one of you?"
It makes me angry.
It's like a whole nother evil.
[Chamberlain] Every year,
more than 5,000 murders
go unsolved in the United States.
[news reporter 1] JonBenét's murder
became America's fixation.
[news reporter 2] Was this mass murderer
targeting Missy Bevers?
The 16-year-old from North Carolina
vanished without a trace.
I'm Kara Robinson Chamberlain,
and in 2002,
I was nearly one of those victims.
[news anchor] At just 15 years old,
Kara was abducted by a serial killer.
[news reporter 3]
Assaulted and tortured for 18 hours,
but somehow she managed to escape.
[Chamberlain] I went on
to a career in law enforcement.
[Lot]
Then she wanted to be a victim advocate
and show them
how they can be a survivor like her.
[Chamberlain] Now I'm investigating
the cases true crime fans
are obsessed with,
because there are people who don't know
what happened to their loved ones.
Somebody knows something.
Somebody saw something.
And if I can bring one person
some answers,
then it's worth everything.
Liz Barraza was just 29 years old
when she was gunned down
outside of her home in Tomball, Texas.
The shocking details of her murder
have true crime fans obsessed
with this case.
Elizabeth Barraza was murdered
right in her driveway.
It seemed like they had so much evidence.
They had video of her killer.
[Chamberlain]
From an investigative standpoint,
video is the best evidence
you can hope for.
And yet this case has remained unsolved
for seven years.
That doesn't just surprise me,
it doesn't make sense.
Stephanie Tinsley is a creator and host of
the investigative true crime podcast
Everything They Missed.
She's following the Liz Barraza case.
Hi, Stephanie.
Hi, Kara.
I wanna talk a little bit
about Liz Barraza.
This is one of the most compelling cases
I've come across in a long time.
Liz was a 29-year-old young woman.
She was married to
a young man named Sergio.
They seemed like
a very sweet young couple.
They were both very--
maybe "obsessed" is the word--
with sci-fi.
They were huge fans of Star Wars,
so much so they had joined
what's called 501st Legion.
an international organization,
over 10,000 members,
and they dress as Star Wars villains.
I've seen a lot of these videos
of this group,
and they go into hospitals
and children's organizations
as a type of charity.
She was getting ready to celebrate
her five-year wedding anniversary
with her husband.
So she seemed like
this sweet, fun young lady.
[Chamberlain]
And her murder was caught on camera,
which I find so shocking.
[Tinsley] So the morning of the murder,
Liz was setting up for the garage sale.
And at about 6:48 a.m.,
her husband, Sergio, leaves for work.
And then, four minutes after he leaves,
this truck parks,
and we see a figure walk to Liz.
She greets them with a "Good morning"…
[garbled audio]
…and then four shots rang out.
-Mmm.
-And then the killer flees.
Law enforcement gets there
and they find nothing.
There's no bullet casings
because it was a revolver.
There's absolutely nothing left behind.
Except these videos.
Except these videos, right.
The killer was also in
what the police think is a disguise.
Because the video is grainy,
perhaps a wig,
perhaps a flowy something…
It could be a cape,
it could be a bathrobe, and boots.
[Chamberlain]
So we have a disguised person,
not a lot of evidence left behind.
So it really does feel like
this could be a hit.
But it doesn't seem like she had
any clear enemies.
[Chamberlain] So at this time,
Liz would usually be on her way to work
as a data inspector
for a pipeline company.
Who would have actually known
that she'd be home?
According to police reports
and family members,
very few people knew about the yard sale.
However, police reports show
they had put out signs.
Somebody see it and think,
"Oh, I'm gonna go rob that person."
[Chamberlain]
But no money was taken, right?
Right. So, it's a big mystery.
I agree. It's…
[stutters] It's very bizarre.
I wanna start by learning
a little bit more about who Liz was.
Her parents, Bob and Rosemary Nuelle,
haven't stopped searching for her killer.
-Hi.
-[Chamberlain] Hi.
-Rosemary? Hey, I'm Kara.
-Yes, I'm Rosemary.
-Nice to meet you, Kara.
-Nice to meet you.
-And I'm Bob.
-You must be Bob?
-Yes. Welcome.
-Nice to meet you, Bob.
-[Rosemary sighs] Have a seat.
-Okay.
All right. Thank you.
How are y'all?
[Rosemary] Good. We're so happy
that you are here to do this.
[Chamberlain] Yeah.
[Bob] We are so blessed that
we're getting the word out.
I mean, this is gonna wipe me out
for a couple of days,
because last year,
they discovered that I had cancer.
But the story needs to be told.
It does.
I haven't given up.
And the important thing is,
to my dying breath,
I will do whatever I can
to get the story out there,
no matter what the cost.
[Chamberlain]
Tell me a little bit about Liz.
[Rosemary] Liz is our second.
We have two children,
Liz and our son, Robert.
From kindergarten
to the middle of fifth grade,
we lived in Florida,
and she was just happy there.
But in the year 2000,
we moved to Texas, and Liz did struggle.
That struggle was made better
by the Harry Potter books.
She would read all the way through
all seven books
and then start over again.
Ultimately, that Harry Potter fandom
became the basis for a lot of friendships
she made here in Texas,
and these are friends that she had
until the day she died.
I would love to hear about
when she met her husband, Sergio.
Um, Liz met Sergio in college.
They became friends,
and it happened really pretty quickly.
[Chamberlain]
Was he a Harry Potter fan too?
He was not a Harry Potter fan.
-He was a Star Wars guy.
-Okay.
We miss you guys
and we hope to see you soon.
[Bob] They had a great marriage,
and they would go down to Orlando
at least once a year.
In 2019,
they had four trips planned to Orlando.
She wanted to make a little extra money,
and that was the rationale
behind the garage sale,
the day our world fractured.
[Chamberlain] Tell me about what happened.
We were both asleep,
and I got a notification on my phone
that her house alarm had gone off.
And I immediately picked up the phone
and called her, and she didn't answer.
Then Sergio called.
He said he was working for his dad,
and he said the alarm had gone off.
-And I said, "Yes, I'm aware of that."
-And he couldn't reach Liz.
That was when I first became afraid
that something had happened to Liz.
[Rosemary] When we showed up at her house,
you could see
lots and lots of police cars.
911's already been called.
[Rosemary]
Their neighbors heard the shots.
[Chamberlain]
What are they telling you at this point?
She had been shot,
and that she had been life-flighted.
That's when I really…
um, was really afraid.
[Bob] We got down
to the hospital, and, uh…
we saw a doctor.
And, uh, of course, the questions
come flying out of you, you know?
And he said, uh…
"There's no coming back from this."
We finally got into the room to see her,
and…
[Rosemary sniffles]
…it was so hard.
[Rosemary] You couldn't…
You couldn't recognize her,
except for her chin.
She was all bandaged up.
The fourth and final shot was delivered
right here.
Into her head at very close range.
The [bleep] leaned over
and was inches away.
He was not gonna miss
with that fourth shot.
[Rosemary] Somebody wanted her dead.
I don't know why.
[voice breaks] And it makes me angry.
[inhales shakily]
[Chamberlain]
One of the first people who called 911
is Liz and Sergio's next-door neighbor,
Shawn, and her late husband,
who both witnessed the shooting.
I'm Kara.
-Nice to meet you.
-Nice to meet you.
-I'm not gonna shake too hard.
-No problem.
-I see you've got an injury here.
-Little bit.
The vehicle over there was
where Liz was laying on the ground.
It's very clear to see her from here.
Very clear to see her. She was
right at this side of the driveway.
-[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm.
-And then,
-this window…
-Oh. Yeah?
…is where I was at, and I could see
her lower torso on the driveway.
-You knew something was wrong.
-I knew something was wrong.
Do you mind showing me
the view from upstairs?
It might help you
to understand what I saw.
Yeah.
What were you doing that morning
when you heard the gunshots?
I was getting ready to go to work.
I noticed that the security light
between our house
and Liz and Sergio's house was on.
And I peeked through the window,
and I could see that there was
a garage sale going on down there.
I could see items on the driveway.
And I heard the shots.
Bang, bang, bang…
-bang.
-[gunshot echoes]
And I could see her
lying down there on the ground
and I started dialing 911.
[Chamberlain] It's terrifying.
I can imagine feeling like
you can see it now.
I can always see it now.
-Yeah.
-I can always see it now.
I'm gonna tell you that
when that motion light goes off,
I'm there.
If there's a loud car door, I'm there.
And the image that will forever be with me
is the image of blood
going down the driveway.
And I'm gonna tell you,
it did not come off easy.
Yeah.
I watched power washer after power washer
try to remove that from that driveway.
And it remains in my…
-my mind forever.
-Yeah.
I wanna talk about
kinda the neighborhood too.
Was there anything that you observed
in the neighborhood after?
It didn't take very long,
and there were, like,
13 police cars
-converged on our house.
-Yeah?
[indistinct chattering]
I said to one of the officers,
"Hey, if you guys wanna know
what happened here,
go to the house
across the street and to the right.
He had surveillance cameras.
He probably caught it on film."
And later in the day,
we thought we'd see what was on the news,
and there was the uncut video.
[Owens] We couldn't believe
what we were seeing.
[Chamberlain] I want to meet with
Detective Michael Ritchie,
who was at the Barraza house
after Liz was murdered.
So the most usable video
that almost everyone has seen
is done from not this residence
but the one kind of behind me over here.
-Yeah.
-So this is the day it happened.
January 25th, 2019.
Liz has the garage sale items set out.
There's Liz right there.
[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm.
Okay. And here is the suspect vehicle.
And they park in this area right here.
They would have been blocking
the driveway…
-Oh, wow. Okay.
-…of the next-door neighbor's house.
-The truck stays running, and--
-So they're actually…
-They actually cut across the yards.
-[Ritchie] Yes.
They cut across the yard, up the driveway.
They produce a firearm.
This startles Liz,
and she takes a step back.
Six to eight seconds goes by
before the first shot's fired.
-[gunshots]
-This suspect fires three shots.
Shooter walks, stands over her,
and shoots one more execution shot.
[gunshot]
Turns, runs.
-They run across the headlights…
-[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm.
…and they get back into the driver door
and then they… they take off
-at a high rate of speed.
-Wow.
So, seems like
they're leaving their car running.
They have a plan that they enact
pretty quickly, so they're not planning
-on blocking that driveway for long.
-[Ritchie] No.
The suspect vehicle parked
at about right here.
And then Liz was right here
in the driveway
setting up the-the garage sale,
standing near where that white van is,
further up the driveway.
And it looks like, from the video,
that they exit out
the driver's side on the street,
and then they take this angle towards Liz.
-We can't see the front door.
-No, you can't.
And so they had a doorbell camera on,
uh, on their front door,
but from this angle,
all you see is a treadmill.
You don't even see…
You don't even see Liz.
Doorbell camera does you no good.
It doesn't see the suspect,
and I always felt
they knew that they were gonna park here
and walk from here
-and avoid being on camera.
-Mm-hmm.
[Ritchie] So one thing
with the doorbell camera,
you pick up some sound,
you pick up her saying "good morning,"
and then you hear
a bunch of garbled noise.
[Liz, distorted] Good morning.
[Ritchie] But her family and friends
told me that,
with the way Liz said "good morning,"
-she did not recognize the person.
-Mm-hmm.
They were definitely trying to hide
their identity…
-Mm-hmm.
-…with what they were wearing.
They have some type of boots on. They're
wearing some type of wig, possibly.
We've never been able to confirm
whether the suspect shooter
-was male or female.
-Right.
Another difficult thing is
they used a-a revolver, 'cause--
-There's no shell casings.
-No casings.
W-When a casing is on the ground
from a shooting, it has the caliber
and type of, uh, ammunition that it is
on the back.
Right. My theory was they already knew
that the garage sale was gonna happen.
They already knew Liz was gonna be outside
exposed and alone.
-[Sergio] Love you.
-[Liz] Love you.
[car door closes]
6:48, Sergio gets in his van.
He backs up and he leaves.
He was working for his father
doing flooring that day.
Approximately two minutes later,
we have the-the truck coming in.
The timing is impeccable.
If you want to commit, you know,
the-the perfect murder
and have the perfect timing,
-you know, this was it.
-Right.
It doesn't look like it's motivated by
trying to steal something.
It doesn't look like someone that's
even necessarily mad.
It looks like someone
who's there to do a job to me.
Correct. I wasn't quite sure
what the motive was.
I just feel like
everything happened too good
for the shooter
for-for this to just be random,
or for them to not have prior knowledge
of this garage sale
and that she would be home alone.
-And the timing of this…
-Mm-hmm.
…is crazy of how quickly this vehicle
comes by and does this shooting
-right after Sergio leaves.
-Right.
And so, in my head, I'm thinking,
"Okay, this might have
something to do with Sergio."
Now, at what point does Sergio arrive?
Sergio arrived
after he got the notification on his phone
-that the alarm had gone off.
-Mm-hmm.
When I saw him, he was in a patrol car
around this area right here,
and there is a stream of blood
going all the way down the driveway,
almost to the street.
-Mmm.
-So I look over at him, thinking, like,
he's gonna start break down crying.
And he's just staring, you know?
-Just… No expression on his face.
-Yeah. Yeah.
Just staring out the window.
That was strange. Just…
I would think you would get a little bit
more of an emotional reaction,
and it's like he's in another world.
Is it strange? Is it suspicious? Yes.
So we started looking at Sergio.
A lot of times when a spouse
is murdered by the other,
life insurance is involved.
And we were able to discover
that Liz had a half-a-million-dollar
life insurance policy.
A half a million dollars is
a lot of money.
[Chamberlain] The killer appeared to time
their attack around Sergio's departure.
Between that and the half-million dollars
that Sergio stood to gain,
there are a few questions I have for him.
I would really like to talk about
January 25th, 2019.
Your wife is senselessly murdered.
Obviously, as part of the investigation,
-you are gonna be a suspect.
-Yeah.
-So tell me what that was like.
-Yeah, yeah.
Uh, to me, I just wanted to be
an open book to them.
Whatever I can do to help
to figure this out, I'm gonna do it.
I… It doesn't matter.
I took a lie detector test.
I gave them all my cell phone data.
I'm not trying to justify anything.
I'm just saying
I want to find out who did this,
because she's the last person that
deserves something like this to happen.
Right. Yeah.
Tell me about that morning.
So, that morning,
-after I left the house to go to work…
-Mm-hmm.
I think, like, within, like, ten minutes,
I get this, like, ping on my phone.
Our alarm system went off,
and I'm like, "That's kind of weird.
Maybe she forgot the alarm was on
and stepped through the house."
And so I called her,
and she didn't answer.
So I'll try it again. Still no answer.
Then I re--
Like, my nerves, like, shot up.
-Mm-hmm.
-Like, "What's… What's going on?" Like…
This was not normal.
Like, she would pick up her phone.
And luckily I had a Ring camera
on the house.
And so I looked at the camera
and saw there was police tape.
What are you thinking at that point?
Please let her be okay.
Please let her be okay.
And I started reviewing the videos,
and that's when I hear the gunshots,
-and my heart just sank.
-Yeah.
'Cause you… you hear her scream.
[crying] And I was like,
"What is going on?"
I was… I was blown away.
[exhales heavily]
Sorry.
[exhales sharply] Hold on.
-Yeah. Take-Take a second. Take a second.
-[sniffles]
[exhales deeply]
[Chamberlain] Just take…
-Seriously, take as long as you--
-[Barraza] Sorry, just…
-Don't-Don't be. You're reliving it.
-[Barraza] …it's just reliving--
Yeah, exactly.
-Like, mind, body and soul. Yeah.
-It's just like, opening up this thing
that you keep trapped inside. [sniffles]
And you don't know… don't know
if you're ever gonna find out why.
It's just like, releasing it. [sniffles]
But… [exhales heavily, sniffles]
So I finally get to the house, and there's
this police tape and police everywhere
and all my neighbors are out looking.
The first thing I see on the driveway is
this pool of blood on the ground,
right in front of the garage door.
I'm like, "Where's Liz? I'm her husband.
Like, what's-what's happening?"
[sniffles] And the police are just like,
"Sir, you need to come with us."
So they immediately just take me
and set me by a police car
and asked me to sit down in it.
[groans]
And they just keep me there.
And they're just not really filling me in
with any details,
so I have no clue if Liz is okay,
where she's at, what's going on.
[Barraza sniffles]
And I was just frozen there
and I couldn't leave.
-I--
-What's your mental state at that point?
I've always felt like
they're immediately judging me.
This is something I went through. This is
something I have seen in so many cases.
People will look at you
and how you respond
-to like, the worst day of your life.
-[Barraza] Yeah. Yeah.
[Chamberlain] And they'll say,
"That's not how I would act."
-But the reality is you don't know.
-Yeah.
-You don't know how you would react.
-Yeah.
Like, for me, personally,
when I went into law enforcement,
they were so shocked
that I was sitting there
and I was saying,
"This is what happened to me,"
-and I was very, very flat.
-Mm-hmm.
It's like, that was shocking.
I completely, like,
understand exactly what you're saying.
-Yeah.
-There's times where I can, like,
really hold myself together
and, like, describe it exactly like that,
where it seems like the only way
I can do it and hold together,
it's like a statue, kind of,
of your emotions.
-Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
-Like, you just completely turn them off.
[Chamberlain] Yeah, what I've learned
is whenever something is too much
for you to process,
basically, your brain's just like,
"Nope." [chuckles]
"We're not gonna…
we're not gonna process that."
-Yeah.
-And you… it's a survival mechanism.
And so I feel like, as you heal,
you start to break down that, like,
stoicism and that dissociation
-that you had to have to get through.
-Mm-hmm.
-No, I-I agree. Yeah.
-Yeah. Yeah.
It's-It's definitely something that…
-it's-it's… can be tough reliving…
-Yeah.
and having to open that wound again,
you know.
-But it's for a purpose.
-Yeah.
[Barraza] I will do this because I want
somebody to come forward with information,
so we can one day get this solved
and figure it out.
[Chamberlain] Yeah.
[Barraza] In college when I first met Liz,
I was just immediately drawn to her.
We connected so well together.
I always described it as puzzle pieces,
-you know, like…
-Mmm.
[Barraza] The beautiful and amazing person
she was, was taken away that morning,
and I miss that so much.
I thank God that the last words
I got to speak to her was, "I love you,"
-and she said, "I love you" back to me.
-Yeah.
[Ritchie] In this case,
I still have not ruled out Sergio
because everybody is still a suspect.
But there was no evidence at all
of any type of, uh, infidelity
or any type of problems or issues
or any type of domestic violence
or anything like that in their marriage.
And Sergio has always answered
my questions, and to this day,
everything he's said, I haven't…
I haven't caught him in a lie.
Everything's been proven to be the truth.
Another thing that's very important
is Sergio's not once asked
for the life insurance.
And I've checked it recently.
It's still there.
So I tried to go a different route.
We knew her main interests were
Harry Potter and Star Wars.
That's where a lot of their…
their money or time went to.
So the big question was,
who knew about this garage sale?
So originally,
I had wanted to join the 501st Legion.
They're a Star Wars charity group
and, like, costuming group.
How did you find out about that?
When I was in college, well,
my roommate had told me about them.
You have to build a costume
and it has to--
This isn't another, like,
-little Halloween costume,
-Right. [laughs]
This is like "you walked off
the movie set" kind of style.
[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm.
[Barraza] I had always told Liz about it,
and she was like, "Let's do it."
Then I started to build
my first stormtrooper costume.
And we built her costume
and we did the community events
and we worked with Make-A-Wish
to grant wishes for kids.
Liz would see the joy we would give
all these kids and all these families,
and she loved how it would make them feel.
-So I thought that was amazing, you know.
-Yeah. Yeah.
[Barraza] The 501st Legion,
they're some of the best people
I've met in my entire life.
I was one of Liz's good friends.
She did love the 501st.
She really loved being around those people
and doing good things for charity.
I've seen some kind of Internet discussion
about the 501st and Liz's death,
but there was no one
that we could think of in the 501st
that would have been capable
of doing something like this to her.
After… [sniffles]
…the shooting, we had a vigil.
Instead of having candles at the vigil,
people showed up with their lightsabers
and…
some of us showed up
with Harry Potter wands.
And there were a lot of people
that loved her.
Throughout all my investigation,
I was able to meet and talk
with numerous members of the 501st
and immediately was able to rule them out.
There was no one there that…
that really fit the bill
that I felt would-would be
a, uh, viable suspect.
[Chamberlain] Tell me about other people
in Liz's life that you looked into.
-Was there anyone she had issues with?
-Yes.
I found out there was
something bothering Liz
right up till the day she was killed.
And it had to do with
her father-in-law, Oscar.
She had issues with him
because Sergio's most recent paycheck
from his father
-had bounced.
-'Cause he worked for his father.
Correct. He did flooring
and worked for his father.
And Oscar had a financial situation,
and I thought maybe somehow Oscar knew
about the half-a-million-dollar
life insurance policy.
[Chamberlain] Really?
[Ritchie] Well,
I interviewed Oscar's daughter
about the day that it occurred.
-Liz's shooting?
-Yes.
And she was like, Oscar found out
about Liz, you know, that morning,
and he spent all day at the job.
And then late that afternoon,
they drive down to the hospital
and, you know, she can overhear
Oscar talking to somebody on the phone.
And she overhears Oscar tell his brother,
"Hey…
we might have a kidney for your grandson."
And ultimately,
guess who gets a kidney from Liz?
Oscar's nephew. Yeah, he gets it.
This is something new, though,
that you haven't spoken about before?
Uh, not in too much detail.
But I found it interesting
because Oscar was speaking about
getting this organ donated
before Liz was dead.
It was like Oscar already knew
that she wasn't gonna live.
Oscar's nephew, he was 19 years old,
and sure enough,
he'd been on a transplant waiting list
for a long time to get a kidney.
And before the murder,
it was discussed that
Sergio would be a possible, um, donor.
But guess who shut that down?
Liz.
Liz said, "No, I don't want this
affecting you physically. Don't do it."
So that had upset her.
And the other thing that was bothering Liz
was that they had recently found out
that Oscar, Sergio's father,
was possibly having an affair.
We were able to find out
that he was living totally a double life
and that he had numerous girlfriends.
He was taking them out to eat,
possibly paying rent,
paying their car note.
He had a lot of money going out.
But Sergio's paycheck
from his father had bounced,
so that really had upset her.
And Sergio and Liz had talked about
possibly confronting Oscar.
So, possibly,
Liz did confront Oscar by himself,
and if she was confronting him,
he would benefit
from her being out of the picture.
There was no proof
that Oscar knew anything
about Liz's life insurance policy,
but Oscar's nephew got that kidney.
He got Liz's kidney.
Another theory was
if she did confront Oscar
about his affair,
and he went to a girlfriend of his
and says, "Hey, I can't see you anymore,"
and this woman could have got upset
and gone after Liz.
But the issues with Oscar
and his second life,
lot of different suspicious things.
But the problem is it's all circumstantial
and there's no evidence there
that can bring about, you know, charges.
So, in regards to your father,
why do you think that he was honed in on?
Well, just 'cause he's
kind of a shady guy, honestly.
Like, before all this happened,
I had this such high opinion for him.
Mm-hmm.
But then right before
Liz was taken from us,
all this stuff came to light
that he was doing, uh, this…
the women, the… the…
the money, all this stuff.
Because of all that,
I've told the Detective about him.
I don't think he actually, like,
did it or anything.
I think maybe somebody
was trying to hurt his family.
Because I know he had lots of
kind of money issues, like, large amounts.
Not like in the millions
-or anything like that, but like…
-Mm-hmm.
…like, thousands of dollars that
I would imagine upset people,
-you know.
-Mm-hmm.
And they could have tried to hurt him
through us,
-you know.
-Yeah.
I've cut ties with him in my life
just because this hasn't been solved.
And then with finding out all
the things he did behind my mother's back,
-Yeah.
-…it's just kind of like
I don't know if I can trust him, you know.
[Chamberlain]
Is there any new evidence in this case
that gives you hope
you're close to finding Liz's killer?
Right now, it's AI. It's like,
who was talking about AI in 2019?
No one.
You know, now, it's-it's everything.
So definitely we're utilizing that.
-I think, talking about that video…
-Mm-hmm.
…I think possibly later on,
as it gets better,
AI could possibly decipher more
from that video.
It could also maybe decipher
more of that garbled audio
-as well as what is being said.
-Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[Liz, distorted]
So, there's definitely, um,
some opportunities for-for AI
to help in this case.
For instance,
we learned about the Google geofence.
Four longitude and latitude points,
and you create a square or a rectangle.
And so we created a fence
around the Barraza house
and the street in front of it.
And that Google geofence,
and you give a date and time
between this time and this time
on this date,
and it pretty much tells you
what devices were running
-and going inside that fence at that time.
-So cool. Yeah.
So, like, every phone
that was on the street that morning?
Right. Everybody's got a phone these days.
Right.
And if that phone belonged to the shooter…
It's a done deal. We got 'em.
We waited ten months
on the Google geofence.
And when it came back, I started yelling
and cussing and screaming
-and had to, you know, walk outside.
-Yeah.
A few items at my desk got tore up.
During that period of time, uh,
that the, uh, suspect was in that fence,
there was nothing there.
So, the shooter really left no trace,
not even a phone signal?
Right. So that tells me right now
that the shooter didn't need to google
the address.
-They knew…
-Right.
They knew their way
around the neighborhood.
And so when this goes down and we find out
who did it, I think I won't be surprised.
You don't think you'll be surprised
by who did it?
No, because we do have
an ace up our sleeve.
We do have some evidence
that is not public and is not known.
And unfortunately,
I can't go into detail about it.
-It's an open investigation.
-Right.
This is the part of the case
that I need to keep confidential.
How close are you to solving this case?
I'm a phone call away.
I'm that one phone call away.
[Chamberlain] Hey, Stephanie.
Hey, how are you?
I'm good
and I've been working pretty hard.
Cannot wait to hear.
[Chamberlain]
So, talking to Detective Ritchie,
the first person
who they investigated was Sergio,
because Liz had
a pretty sizable life insurance policy.
But up to this point,
it doesn't look like Sergio's
even attempted to claim that money.
Sergio really did not manage the money.
He like, kind of knew
that Liz had an insurance policy,
but she paid all the bills,
she managed all the money.
So he just had no clue
-how much her life insurance was worth.
-[Tinsley] Oh.
Did he give any indication
what his gut feeling was
about who-who could have killed her?
He just said, "I don't know.
I don't… I-I-I don't know."
Did he think that the 501st
had anything to do with the murder itself?
He talked about the 501st a little bit
and how important that was to him and Liz.
And they just really would go
above and beyond for people.
And even what they did
to honor her memory, it was pretty…
it was pretty astounding.
So, I also asked Detective Ritchie about
the 501st, and he was just kind of like,
"Yeah, 501st is-is just, it's a lead
that doesn't really go anywhere.
There's not really anything
that we found there."
What about Sergio's dad?
So, this is kind of interesting.
I see it as a little farfetched,
but people do stuff
for farfetched reasons.
So, one of the individuals on the list
who received one of Liz's kidneys
is actually Oscar's nephew.
Detective Ritchie said
that on the way to the hospital,
Sergio's sister heard
her dad telling his brother
that his relative could have Liz's kidney
before she was dead.
There were also some tensions
over finances within the family.
And there's this thought
that Liz could have confronted him
over affairs he was having.
So, it's a complicated situation.
Nothing solid, just something
for investigators to look into.
Does Sergio still work for his dad?
He doesn't.
He said he hasn't talked to him.
He said, "I cut ties with him
because of all of this,
-and I don't know if I can trust him."
-[exhales sharply]
Yeah. So, it's just really hard to say.
If you could leave people
with a call to action,
what would that be?
Please come forward.
It affected so many people,
and that's the thing that I think really
has been surprising to, especially me,
it's been surprising how many people
have been affected by her… the loss.
[Bob] The manner in which she was killed
is so cold-blooded,
-[Chamberlain] Mm-hmm.
-it's so heartless.
And we wanted it solved
because I don't want another family
-to go through what we're going through.
-Right.
So, it's a galaxy of uncertainty.
-You just can't figure it out.
-Mmm.
I mean, but the thing is,
somebody out there knows something.
This did not happen in a vacuum.
Right.
[Rosemary] I do believe she was targeted,
and it makes me angry…
that it could be somebody that we know.
It's bad enough that you took her.
[sniffles]
But then to make us go through this…
[sniffles]
[sobs] …day after day
of knowing how much
you were hurting all of us.
Not just Bob and I,
but all her family, her friends,
we're all in so much pain.
And it's just makes me so hurt and so…
[sniffles] I try not to be angry,
but it's just not right.
It's like you're-you're
a whole nother evil.
Just… [sniffles]
If you know something, come forward.
[sniffles] Please come forward.
Hopefully, new technology will be able
to enhance Liz's murderer's voice enough
that they can be identified.
In the meantime, I hope that sharing her
story will keep the conversation going.
Liz Barraza's family deserves to know
why she was killed.
If you were in Liz's neighborhood
on the morning of January 25, 2019,
and saw anything out of the ordinary,
please call
the Harris County Sheriff's Office.
For further discussion about Liz's case,
visit the Somebody Knows Something channel
on abcnews.com.
She said,
"I have to notify you he's missing."
You think you drop your kid off at school,
he was supposed to be safe.
I remember waiting,
thinking he's gonna come back.
[siren wails]
Statistically,
one of us had committed the crime.
What the hell is going on?