On June 23, 2001, Mary Jane Rebollar was found dead in her own car which had been abandoned in a field and set on fire. An autopsy revealed that she died of multiple stab wounds. The ensuing investigation led to the arrest and indictment of Gustavo Mireles.
Actual Innocence Review is a non-profit organization found by Daryl Parker, who is our guest today.
AIR has conducted an exhaustive investigation of the facts of this case, in which Mr. Mireles was convicted of the 2001 murder of Mary Jane Rebollar, and sentenced to Life in prison. We believe there is significant evidence to support Mr. Mireles’ claim of Actual Innocence.
On June 21st, 2001, Gustavo Mireles went to a bar in Donna, TX, where he casually met and talked to the victim, Mary Jane Rebollar and her female friend.
After initial polite conversation, Mary Jane and her friend went to play pool, while Gustavo returned to watching a soccer game on the bar's television.
Mary Jane's friend left early, but Mary Jane and Gustavo both stayed until closing time, when everyone left and went home.
Mary Jane was found two days later in the closed cab of her truck, which was parked in a plowed field.
She had been stabbed over forty times with a screwdriver-type weapon.
Two drops of blood at the scene and a pubic hair "matched" Gustavo.
-Gustavo had no record of violence, and only one misdemeanor violation at the time of the crime

- Mary Jane's boyfriend was a cartel drug-dealer with a violent criminal history

- Mary Jane's family, who reported her missing, describe the boyfriend's conflicting stories as to where he was over the two days before her body was found

- When police went to speak to the boyfriend about the murder, they found over $1 million worth of drugs in his house

- Those drugs were packed in boxes from a company belonging to a politically connected family

- Due to the size of the drug bust, investigators called in the DEA, who whisked the boyfriend away

- Investigators let the drug bust supersede the homicide, and failed to even document their interview with the boyfriend

- Investigators failed to discover that Mary Jane's friend was having an affair with her boyfriend, and had left the bar early to go meet him

- Despite the bar owner being able to read and write English, investigators wrote the statement out for him, in which he identified Gustavo as talking to Mary Jane in a car after closing time

- The bar owner has since clarified that he saw Gustavo speaking with a woman in a car, not the victim in her red and white pickup truck

- The bar owner said it was too dark to identify the woman Gustavo was speaking with

- The bar owner said that Gustavo and the woman in the car were the only people in the parking lot, so the victim was already gone

- Despite a very bloody crime scene, police found none of the victim's DNA on Gustavo's clothing

- The crime scene DNA was badly degraded because of the hot conditions inside the truck cab

- The two blood drops and pubic hair identifying Gustavo supposedly found at the crime scene were not degraded at all

- Police had collected blood and hair samples from Gustavo, and had those samples in their possession at the same time they possessed the crime scene evidence

- The relevant samples were received by the lab in unsealed condition

- There is no scientific explanation for the difference in degradation in these samples

- This is strong evidence that the samples attributed to Gustavo from the crime scene were actually taken from the samples police collected from him after his arrest

- Blood spatter evidence in crime scene photos demonstrate that at least two people loaded Mary Jane's body into the truck

- Mary Jane had female tissue under her nails