- The man indicted Thursday in Klamath Falls on charges
of raping and killing a nun was apprehended in the Portland railroad yards
in 1992 by a federal immigration official who made him promise to leave
the country.
-
- The Immigration and Naturalization Service agent who
arrested Maximiliano Silerio Esparza on Oct. 21, 1992, apparently was unaware
that Esparza wasn't just another undocumented immigrant. Esparza had been
in a California prison earlier that year and had already received formal
deportation orders from an Arizona immigration judge.
-
- Esparza was asked to sign an I-210, a form that is part
of the INS' most casual deportation program, which some INS agents derisively
call "catch-and-release." The document made him acknowledge he
was in the United States illegally and promise to leave shortly, according
to an internal INS record of the incident obtained by The Oregonian.
-
- A month later, Portland police arrested Esparza on suspicion
of selling cocaine in Old Town. But again Esparza was released -- this
time after one night in jail. Esparza was later indicted on the drug charges
but never showed up at court in January 1993. He has had a warrant out
for his arrest ever since.
-
- Ed Sale, spokesman for the INS Portland District, said
he couldn't comment on any of the agency's encounters with Esparza. He
said the INS relies on police to inform it when a potentially illegal immigrant
has been arrested. He also said the agency's 1992 encounter with Esparza
in Portland may have been handled by the U.S. Border Patrol, which is part
of INS but not directly overseen by the Portland office.
-
- Esparza was indicted by a Klamath Falls grand jury Thursday
on 11 counts, including aggravated murder, rape and sodomy. Police say
Esparza rode a train from Portland to Klamath Falls last weekend before
visiting a strip bar and then attacking two nuns early Sunday morning while
they were praying on a downtown bike path.
-
- Authorities say he head-butted one of the nuns, then
proceeded to rape them both while controlling them with the rosary beads
around their necks. Helen Chaska -- who went by the name Sister Helena
Maria -- died in the attack, strangled by her own beads, according to an
autopsy report.
-
- Klamath County Prosecutor Ed Caleb is seeking the death
penalty for Esparza. He said he is putting two staff investigators on the
case full time to try to piece together Esparza's past. Investigators,
Caleb said, are looking into as many as nine different aliases Esparza
has used.
-
- Esparza's 1992 record shows:
-
- He was released from a California prison under the alias
Martin Martinez on Jan. 15 after serving three years for robbery and kidnapping.
He was supposed to be deported by the INS at that time, but it's not clear
whether he ever was. Immigration records, however, show that he was ordered
deported on Jan. 31 in Florence, Ariz. -- but this time under the alias
Victor Batres-Martinez.
-
- When he was picked up by the INS and Portland police
later that year, he went by Maximiliano Silerio Esparza, which is the same
name under which he is being held in Klamath Falls. It also happens to
be the name of the governor of the northern Mexican state of Durango from
1989 to 1998.
-
- The Oregonian has learned that Klamath County investigators
suspect Esparza used other aliases over the years, including Mateo Jimenez,
Manuel Martinez Martinez, Victor Martinez Guerrero and Jose Garcia Perez.
-
- When Esparza was apprehended by the INS in Portland in
October 1992, he said he entered the United States in September 1985 through
the U.S. border town of San Ysidro, south of San Diego, according to the
incident document. He also said his father's name was Alejandro and his
mother's name Francisca.
-
- A relatively new computerized fingerprinting program
called IDENT has helped the INS track criminal immigrants far better than
it could 10 years ago, Sale said, noting the new technology makes it much
harder for people to maintain multiple fake identities.
-
- Relatives and friends of the 53-year-old nun Esparza
is accused of strangling are still reeling from the news of her slaying.
-
- Chaska was a nun with the Bellevue, Wash., Immaculate
Heart of Mary, a small order unaffiliated with the Roman Catholic Church.
In her missionary work, Chaska repeatedly visited the home of Darlene Brody
of Auburn, Wash.
-
- Brody recalled Chaska quite differently than did her
siblings, who portrayed their oldest sister as loving but strong-minded
and preachy before they lost contact with her years ago.
-
- "She was a very, very shy person," Brody said
of Chaska. "She hardly said anything. She was extremely shy about
everything. It just hurts so much for it to happen to her. She was a wonderful
woman." Staff writer Maxine Bernstein contributed to this report.
-
-
- Jim Lynch 360-867-9503 lynchj@attbi.com
-
- http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/
|
