No one said a word.
Cantu took a step toward Raul and said, “You’re in! Welcome aboard. You’re one of us.” The rest of the guys burst out laughing as they watched the new guy’s expression change from anxiety to relief. “Dude, you’re a badass. You’re welcome to hang out with us anytime.” Cantu smiled at his newest compadre. “You’re in now, daddy. You’re in.”
Raul Villarreal finally broke out into a huge smile. He was greatly relieved he wouldn’t get his ass kicked anymore. He joined the others in drinking beer and hanging out on the railroad tracks. The guys spoke of what it meant to have each other’s backs and to take care of one another. They spoke of the mutual respect they must all share with one another. They also talked about having balls and being able to deal with put-downs from the other guys in the group. If someone cracked a joke about your momma, you had better take it in stride and learn how to laugh it off. They were merely fucking with you, and if you overreacted, you would be considered a pussy and not worthy of hanging out with the group. Raul informed the guys he was more than capable of doing everything they suggested. He thanked them repeatedly for letting him join the group.
“This is gonna be fun.” Raul Villarreal laughed as he hoisted his beer bottle aloft.
Chapter 16
Thursday, June 24, 1993—10:05 P.M.
Spring Hill Apartments
West Thirty-fourth Street
Houston, Texas
Elizabeth, Jennifer, Gina, Roseanne, Chris, Michael, and Jose arrived at Chris’s apartment complex. Despite no longer dating, Gina and Chris remained good friends, so there was no awkwardness amongst the group.
Instead of going into Chris’s apartment, the group decided they would hang out by the large pool in the center of the complex. Some of the girls sat in lounge chairs that encircled the large pool, while the guys sat in chairs under the gazebo.
The friends mainly caught up with one another. There was nothing earth-shattering to discuss, they simply were glad to be in each other’s company. The group sat around the pool and chatted for the next fifteen minutes.
At approximately 10:20 P.M., Jennifer leaned in toward Elizabeth and suggested they get ready to go. Elizabeth agreed and they told their friends they needed to head on back home. One thing led to another as the girls got caught up talking even more, and another ten minutes had elapsed.
At 10:30 P.M., Jennifer stood up and was bound and determined to take off. She had a great time hanging out with her friends, but she had an eleven o’clock curfew. It would take them close to thirty minutes to get back to the Pena residence.
Suddenly a beep sounded on Elizabeth’s belt.
She looked down at her pager and saw that her friend Vanessa Rivera had paged her.
“Let me go call Vanessa back and see what she wants,” Elizabeth told Jennifer. She asked Chris if there was a pay phone available. He pointed one out near the pool and she went to call her friend. Of course, the page was for nothing important. Vanessa merely wanted to see what Elizabeth was up to. The whole affair took up another ten minutes.
Jennifer started to get nervous. They now only had twenty minutes to get home before her curfew. Normally, they would have exited the apartment complex, taken a left onto West Thirty-fourth Street, and gone down until they took another left onto T. C. Jester Boulevard. From there, they would walk all the way down T. C. Jester Boulevard and then take a right onto Lamonte Lane, where they would have to walk another half-mile to get to Elizabeth’s house.
They were not going to make it home on time. The last thing they wanted to do was get into trouble, so they came up with an alternate plan.
The two girls were joined by Gina and Roseanne at the pay phone. All four girls said their good-byes to the boys. Gina and Roseanne recalled they all four headed east on West Thirty-fourth Street until they came to the Clearbrook Apartments.
“We’ve got to take the shortcut through the park so we won’t be late,” Jennifer told Gina. She referred to a pathway that led to the train track and bridge through T. C. Jester Park and crossed over the White Oak Bayou. It would save them approximately ten minutes of walking time and would probably allow them to get home before curfew.
“All right, y’all, take it easy.” Gina said good night. “Call me when you get home.”
“Yes, Mom.” Both girls laughed in unison.
Gina smiled at her friends, stuck her tongue out at them, and turned around with Roseanne to walk back to her apartment on Mangum Road.
Elizabeth and Jennifer made their way through the Clearbrook Apartments parking lot and up to a chain-link fence. They knew about the pulled-back fence and that they could scoot under, hit the trail to the train bridge, and they would be home in time to make Elizabeth’s parents happy.
It was approximately 10:45 P.M.
They were going to have to hurry.
Chapter 17
The guys continued to drink and celebrate the addition of their newest friend, Raul Villarreal. Peter Cantu and Joe Medellin started needling one another.
“You’re a pussy,” Cantu slammed Joe.
“Oh, yeah? You’re a pussy,” Joe weakly shot back.
“Yeah, your momma’s a faggot, bitch,” Cantu bested Joe.
“Yeah, well, you’re a faggot,” Joe again weakly countered. It was their way of showing they had respect for one another. “Talking shit” was their form of male bonding.
They hung out for around ten to fifteen more minutes, when, at approximately 10:45 P.M., Frank Sandoval was hit with a feeling he could not truly describe. He knew if he and his brother hung around the train tracks any longer, they were going to be in a world of trouble. He needed to tell his brother they had to get out of there immediately.
“Ramon, c’mon, man. Let’s take off,” Frank requested of his twin brother.
“What for, man? Let’s hang out.” Ramon had no desire to leave.
Frank stood close to his brother and whispered, “C’mon, man. These dudes have been drinking all fucking day. I don’t trust them. Let’s get out of here.” He gave his brother a serious look he later claimed only twins could understand.
Ramon quickly acquiesced. “All right, bro. I’ll be right there.” He turned to the other guys and somewhat apologetically said, “Sorry, guys. Frank’s being a pussy and he wants to go home. I gotta take him with me, so we’re outta here.”
“Pussy! Faggot!” the guys screamed at Frank, making sure to give him an extremely hard time.
Frank flipped them the finger and said, “See you douche bags later.”
Raul laughed. He liked the camaraderie the guys had with one another and he was looking forward to taking part in that friendship.
Frank and Ramon’s curfew was midnight but they were ready to bolt. Both boys stepped it up and began to make the trek along the railroad tracks back to the apartment complex. It was Frank’s first time hanging out with O’Brien, Yuni, and Raul. He was none too impressed. He later could not give a good reason as to why he decided to hang out with the guys that night, other than to say he felt he needed to be there for his brother.
As the twins walked down the railroad tracks, the other guys stood up. Joe Medellin looked at his brother Yuni and said, “Let’s go. We need to get home before Mom does.” They started to walk up to the tracks and follow in the same direction as the Sandovals, but they were moving at a slower pace.
Frank and Ramon continued to walk away, when they suddenly spotted two girls several feet ahead walking up the gravel embankment to get to the railroad tracks. The girls made it up at the same time the Sandoval twins passed them. The brothers barely acknowledged the girls’ presence as they slipped by. They did not warn the girls that a group of guys that had recently been drinking and fighting were just up ahead.
The Sandoval brothers went along their way and started the descent down the gravel embankment. They headed back to the path to O’Brien’s apartment complex. Yuni Medellin was close behind and he also passed the two girls on the railroad tracks.
“Dude, hold up,” O’Brien said to Joe Medellin. “They could be a couple of those dicks from the apartment complex.” O’Brien, who could not see in the dark, was worried they might get jumped by some other guys.
“It’s cool, Sean. It’s a couple of chicks.”
The girls continued to walk in the direction of Joe Medellin and Sean O’Brien. As they passed the boys, Joe Medellin reached out and pinched Elizabeth Pena on the left breast. Elizabeth swatted Joe Medellin’s hand away and kept on walking.
“No, baby,” Joe Medellin said to Elizabeth. “Where you going?” he asked as he grabbed her by the left hand. Elizabeth tried to shake her hand free of him; however, he had a very tight grip on her. “You ain’t going nowhere, bitch!” Joe Medellin informed her as he grabbed her around the neck and placed her in a choke hold.
“Help!” Elizabeth screamed.
Frank Sandoval heard the loud scream erupt from the tracks. Before he stepped across the ditch into the woods, he looked back up to the railroad tracks. He thought he spotted Joe Medellin grab one of the girls from behind by her neck and throw her to the ground.
Instead of heading back to help the girl, Frank did nothing. He simply continued on into the woods.
“Help! Please, somebody! Help me!” the girl screamed.
According to Frank Sandoval, he stopped again to see that Jennifer Ertman had actually passed the other guys and could have escaped—had she taken off running. Instead, the fourteen-year-old girl came back to help her best friend.
As a result, Elizabeth’s screams were joined in unison by Jennifer’s screams. Frank Sandoval looked up and saw O’Brien and Cantu grab Jennifer by her arms and then knock her down to the ground. Jennifer attempted to scramble away, but O’Brien held a firm grasp on her legs.
“Help! Leave me alone,” the girl screamed at O’Brien and Cantu. “Leave me alone.” Jennifer began to kick at her tormentors and screamed in hopes that someone would come to help her and Elizabeth.
But the Sandoval brothers ignored her screams and went on. Frank Sandoval later admitted he was scared and did not know what to do. “I didn’t want to get involved in none of that,” he admitted.
Frank looked at his twin, Ramon, as if to say, What do we do? Ramon was just as confused as Frank and basically shrugged. The brothers did not go back to help the girls. Instead, they made their way to the fence behind O’Brien’s apartment complex. They headed to the cars and decided they would wait for the guys to return. They would wait nearly half an hour before they realized the guys were not coming back soon. They decided they could no longer wait, so they headed home on foot. It would take them close to an hour to walk home.
When they got home, they did not contact the police.
Chapter 18
Peter Cantu was jonesing for a fight. He didn’t get to take his frustrations out on Raul Villarreal and he was itching to extract some pain on someone. At that point, Cantu looked up and saw two dark silhouetted figures walking toward them. He saw the taller of the two figures and assumed it was a guy.
He still wanted that fight. Here was his opportunity.
Cantu approached one of the figures and pulled the person down to the ground. It was then he realized it was a young girl, fourteen-year-old Jennifer Ertman.
Yuni Medellin returned his gaze back toward his brother, Joe. He watched as his weight-lifting brother grabbed the taller, thinner dark-haired girl, threw her over his shoulder, and began to flee down the other side of the train embankment, almost like a caveman dragging his woman back to his lair. As Joe Medellin made his way down the gravel decline, he tripped and fell, sending Elizabeth sprawling to the ground. Joe Medellin landed on top of the girl so she was unable to get away.
Efrain Perez saw what was going on with his boy Joe, so he decided to help out. The lanky seventeen-year-old bounded down the side of the railroad track embankment and helped Joe pin Elizabeth down on the ground.
“Let me go!” she screamed again. She was not crying, but her voice was loud.
As Joe Medellin recovered from his fall, Cantu began to drag Jennifer down the same embankment to where Joe and Elizabeth were. He pulled her by her arms, with Sean O’Brien following behind, making sure she did not escape.
Joe Medellin picked up Elizabeth again and made his way toward the bald spot in the grass.
“Let me go!” Elizabeth continued to scream. The thin girl was unable to put up much resistance. But she tried to claw at his eyes and kick him with her legs. She continued screaming, “Let me go! Let me go! Please let me go!” Joe Medellin ignored her pleas and forged onward.
Yuni could hear his brother taunting Elizabeth. “Take off your clothes, bitch!” he barked. A frightened Elizabeth complied. She sobbed as she peeled off her blouse, exposing her new purple bra that she received for her sixteenth birthday just three days before. She squirmed on the ground as she lay on her back. Yuni stood thirty feet away from her on the railroad tracks. He did not lend the frightened girl a helping hand. Instead, he watched as his brother prepared to rape Elizabeth.
“Take off your pants,” Joe ordered the attractive young girl.
Elizabeth did as she was told, but it was difficult for her to disrobe her pants as she lay flat on her back.
Joe Medellin leaned in closer to Elizabeth and grabbed her jeans at the waist. He ripped them down to her ankles. He then stood up, pulled his own pants down past his buttocks, and forced Elizabeth to perform fellatio on his penis.
Fourteen-year-old Yuni looked down the embankment and saw Cantu and Jennifer. Cantu had dragged the teenager down the side of the hill into the bald spot in the grass. He watched as his brother’s friend tossed Jennifer to the ground. She tried to pick herself up from off her knees, but she could not muster the strength to lift herself. Cantu walked in front of the virgin, unzipped his pants, pulled out his member, and said, “Suck it, bitch!”
Jennifer never had sexual relations of any kind before. She probably had no idea how to perform oral sex other than what she had heard from some of her friends. Most likely, she did what she was told because she feared what would happen to her.
Yuni scooted down the embankment of the train tracks to where Cantu had dragged Jennifer. He gained his balance as he came to the bottom of the gravel. Five feet in front of him, he witnessed Jennifer on her knees fellating Cantu. She was fully dressed, as was Cantu. He had unzipped his pants and pulled out his penis to be serviced by the fourteen-year-old girl. Yuni watched as Cantu looked back at him and flashed a devilish grin. He grabbed the blond girl’s hair and forced her head back and forth on his member. The girl looked terrified, but was doing as she was ordered.
Yuni stood in shock watching the scene unfold before him. He was mesmerized by the motion of the blond girl’s head. Eventually he snapped out of his trance and turned around toward his brother. He was stunned to see his brother fucking the skinny dark-haired girl. He had mounted her in a missionary position and was thrusting into her vagina while she lay on the loose wooden railroad ties and rocks under the train tracks.
“Let me go!” Elizabeth screamed. “I’m gonna get into trouble.” She was furious, but she could not fight. Elizabeth was not crying, just angry.
Yuni did not want to watch his brother rape the young girl. He had no idea where to go, but he knew he did not want to see his brother’s ass flopping up and down. He turned around and stared at Cantu and Jennifer.
“Dude, let’s go,” Yuni pleaded.
Cantu ignored the younger Medellin and kept grabbing onto Jennifer’s head. He was having too good a time to leave.
“Dude, c’mon. Let’s get outta here,” Yuni pleaded again. He started to freak out. He was scared and he knew this was only going to turn out bad. He wanted to get the hell out of there before anyone in the Clearbrook Apartments heard them and decided to come protect the girls.
Sean O’Brien, Raul Villarreal,
and Efrain Perez walked down the embankment to watch what was going on. All three teenage boys stood directly beside Cantu and watched as Jennifer was forced to suck the boy off. None of them lifted a finger to help the young girl. Instead, they cheered on their buddy.
“Do that bitch’s face,” Efrain Perez hollered.
“Give it to her, brother,” Sean O’Brien encouraged.
“Do it! Do it!” Raul Villarreal gleefully shouted over and over.
It was their very own private porno, and they all had front-row seats.
Yuni also watched the scene unfold before him. He stood there, almost in a daze. Not knowing what else to do, he turned to look at Cantu, who was still forcing himself on Jennifer. He stood within five feet of Cantu and Jennifer, but he did not advance. He merely watched the fourteen-year-old perform oral sex on Cantu against her will. Cantu looked back at Yuni again and smiled.
Yuni turned away, only to see his brother climbing back on top of Elizabeth. Joe had removed his penis from the girl’s mouth and forcefully rammed it into her vagina.
Yuni Medellin turned away from what his brother was doing. He could not believe this all happened so quickly and was getting out of hand at such a rapid pace. He turned back toward Cantu and said in a quiet voice, “Let’s go, man.” Yuni was afraid of Peter Cantu and did not want to piss the older boy off. He knew what was going down was not right, and they should all get the hell out of there before they got into even bigger trouble.
Cantu still ignored the youngest member of the group. Instead, he grabbed Jennifer by the hair and continued forcing her to orally copulate him.
Yuni was scared. No one was listening to him. He knew he should take off, but he couldn’t move. He stayed put. It was his first time to ever hang with his brother and his buddies and he didn’t want to come across as a pussy. He figured this incident would be over soon enough.
The only problem was, his friends were far from finished.
Yuni looked back over at Cantu and Jennifer and saw her pants had come off. He had no idea how, but they were just off. She still wore her shirt. By this time, Jennifer was lying on the ground on her back—only now, O’Brien was raping her vagina in the missionary position.
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