A 28-year-old man in Texas will serve for the remainder of his life in prison for shooting and killing a lady he was “obsessed” with and her roommate the previous year.
Rosendo Jesus Montoya was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by Atascosa County District Court Judge Russell H. Wilson on Monday for the killings of Mary Heinz, 33, and her roommate Laura West, 43, authorities said.
The Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office reports that on June 29, 2023, at around five in the morning, police and firefighters responded to a report of a fire at a residence in the 100 block of Peach Street in Leming, Texas.
First responders managed to extricate one adult female victim from the flaming house after they arrived on the site. The woman, subsequently identified as West, had already passed away from what seemed to be a head wound caused by a bullet.
The house belonged to West, the owner, and he shared it with a roommate named Heinz, who vanished from the house and “sparked a mystery right away.”
The following week was devoted to interviewing witnesses, compiling evidence, and obtaining as much security footage from the neighborhood surrounding West’s house as they could. Six days later, they named Montoya as the primary suspect in West’s murder. Montoya had previously worked at McDonald’s with Heinz and had grown “obsessed” with her.
“The suspect was working at a fast-food restaurant in Pleasanton,” Sheriff David Soward stated. “Shortly before 9 p.m. Monday, two investigators observed the suspect come out of the restaurant, move his vehicle close to a dumpster, get out of his car, retrieve two black plastic trash bags from his car, and place them in the dumpster as he left work. About 45 minutes later, he was stopped by sheriff’s deputies and interviewed on the side of the road. At the same time, one of my investigators went into the dumpster and retrieved the two black plastic trash bags and found it contained partial human remains.”
As part of his plot to murder Heinz, the DA explained to the media how Montoya placed her body into a container he had just bought. When West returned home at some point during the horrible deed, Montoya shot her in the head.
“Today’s plea means Montoya can no longer hurt anyone outside prison walls,” Louis stated. “While this does not undo the horrific murders of Mary Heinz and Laura West or the lifetime of pain for their children and families, it spares the family and our community the pain of a trial.”
“You’re an evil, little weasel,” she stated to him. “Also, your family, look what you put them through. Please look at me. This is what Mary should look like if she were here. Shame on you.”
