QUOTE OF THE DAY: "And, in all his years as an investigator, Parker said he hasn’t encountered a case as egregious as this before. “I’ve never seen a law enforcement investigation this bad,” Parker said. “In fact, I would say that it’s more than bad, it is intentional.”
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: In a September 2021 hearing, former Assistant District Attorney Luis Gonzalez argued that the blood on the jeans, the two bloodstains on the outside of the truck and the hair found in Rebollar’s purse matched Mireles. Gonzalez further argued that if DNA belonging to someone else were to be found, if retested it would only prove that someone else was there, not that Mireles is innocent. Brian Erhenberg, Mireles’ attorney, retorted that the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab, which was later moved to Weslaco, didn’t use the FBI’s new standard of testing in 2001 on the evidence. That lab was shut down in 2003 after an internal audit found gross errors, including mishandling of evidence, which impacted hundreds of cases causing several personnel to be suspended. Erhenberg also alleged that Arce and/or Rodriguez are the murderers."
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STORY: "Investigator details evidence in Alamo man’s ‘fatally flawed’ murder conviction," by Reporter Xavier Alvarez, published by my RGV.com, on June 13, 2025. (Xavier Alvarez is a Rio Grande Valley native who covers crime and courts in Hidalgo County,)
GIST: "Monday morning saw family and friends gathered at the Hidalgo County Courthouse just outside of the 332nd state district court’s doors with the hope of seeing their loved one get a second chance at life following a 20-plus year struggle, only to be met with resistance once more.
Gustavo Mireles, 58, was sentenced to life without parole for the brutal murder of 41-year-old Mary Jane Rebollar on Aug. 14, 2002. A murder he said and has continued to say he didn’t commit. A murder that experts have said was severely mishandled.
Daryl Parker, a retired U.S. Marine and police lieutenant now turned investigator, who’s been working on Mireles’ case for about 12 years with the Texas Innocence Project, said Monday that the investigation into the murder was “flawed.”
“I can tell you that the DNA evidence was fatally flawed from the very beginning,” Parker said. “It was collected wrong. It was stored wrong. It was transported wrong. It was tested wrong. Every single step in that chain was flawed.”
On June 31, 2001, Rebollar’s partially nude body was found collapsed in a pool of blood on the passenger floorboard of a partially burned Chevrolet pick-up truck with Kansas plates parked on a dirt road in a sugar cane field in Alamo.
Rebollar had been stabbed 46 times with an unknown object that was never found.
Two days before, Rebollar had a night out at the Starz Lounge with a woman named Delia Rodriguez whom she befriended after moving to the Rio Grande Valley from Lubbock.
She was dating a man named Jesus Arce. The two planned on starting a business together in the Rio Grande Valley.
And that same night, at the same bar, was Mireles having drinks and watching a soccer game where their paths ultimately crossed. The two spoke briefly before Mireles left. He had to be in Corpus Christi the following morning for work.
Then, months later, Mireles would find himself indicted on charges of capital murder, murder, arson and sexual assault.
Crime scene photos showed that Rebollar had fought back. She had a clump of hair in her fist and blood under her fingernails.
Parker explained the two items that got Mireles convicted were hair and blood. When they finally got a hold of the test kit, there were two items missing: hair and blood.
He added that the evidence gathered from Mireles at the jail didn’t arrive intact to the lab.
“There was blood missing from one of the blood tubes and … both of the hair samples, the envelopes which had been sealed and were testified to at the trial by the nurse who did it, were open,” Parker said.
Furthermore, the blood gathered at the crime scene wasn’t consistent with the conditions of the crime scene.
Blood smeared on the vehicle should’ve been from Rebollar; however, if the killer was injured in the initial struggle, there would’ve been a mixture of her and the murderer’s blood and yet the two swabs of blood collected from outside of the truck door were only Mireles’.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Parker said. “That’s not consistent with the crime scene.”
In email correspondence from 2013 between the Texas Department of Public Safety, CODIS Program Manager Gary J. Molina and a woman named Vanessa Nelson, which was provided by Mireles’ sister, Leonor Matano, reads that a crucial piece of evidence, namely a pair of jeans with Mireles’ blood allegedly on them, was never entered into CODIS.
CODIS stands for Combined DNA Index System, which is a tool utilized by law enforcement to compare DNA profiles from crime scenes with those of known offenders or those arrested.
“I have an old case that is currently under review at the request of the Texas Forensic Science Commission that needs a keyboard search,” the email read. “A profile was never entered into CODIS by the original examiner.”
That piece of evidence were the jeans belonging to Rebollar that allegedly had Mireles’ blood on them.
In a September 2021 hearing, former Assistant District Attorney Luis Gonzalez argued that the blood on the jeans, the two bloodstains on the outside of the truck and the hair found in Rebollar’s purse matched Mireles. Gonzalez further argued that if DNA belonging to someone else were to be found, if retested it would only prove that someone else was there, not that Mireles is innocent.
Brian Erhenberg, Mireles’ attorney, retorted that the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab, which was later moved to Weslaco, didn’t use the FBI’s new standard of testing in 2001 on the evidence.
That lab was shut down in 2003 after an internal audit found gross errors, including mishandling of evidence, which impacted hundreds of cases causing several personnel to be suspended.
Erhenberg also alleged that Arce and/or Rodriguez are the murderers.
Though Arce was Rebollar’s boyfriend, he was romantically involved with Rodriguez at the time of the murder, which is a point the jury in Mireles’ trial never heard.
When her body was found, Rebollar was in possession of a map to Arce’s house which was closer to her body than Mireles’, according to Erhenberg and evidence in the case.
Rebollar had defensive wounds. She had a broken nose, black eyes and cuts on her knuckles and fingers.
The clump of hair her body held on to was never tested. And, at the time, the DNA found in the fingernail scraping testing only matched a profile of a woman.
Then, nearly 15 years later, Arce was murdered in Lubbock.
Parker believes corruption played a role in this case because Arce, the victim’s common-law husband, was a cartel drug mule.
Authorities found 1,500 pounds of packaged marijuana in Arce’s house the night they spoke to him about his wife who had already been missing for two days.
Arce never called the police to report Rebollar missing and police never searched the grounds for Rebollar’s missing boot, keys nor track marks or blood, according to Parker.
He added that Arce did a few years in the penitentiary only to be found later tied to a bed and beaten to death by the cartel following his release.
Mireles’ family and friends waited over three hours in hopes that state District Judge Juan Alvarez would find the evidence insufficient, but they were met with another obstacle.
Mireles’ team submitted the proper documents to proceed on March 14. The state had 20 days to respond but failed to meet the deadline, according to court documents.
Alvarez still gave Erhenberg a window of opportunity for another hearing.
“By tomorrow I have to submit the case law,” Erhenberg said on Monday. “If I can find case law that is discretionary for the judge then he’ll allow it, because he heard his case. He does feel for Gus.”
Erhenberg was tasked with finding case law in order to proceed with another hearing scheduled for June 23. He said via email that he has yet to hear from the judge.
“He’s given us one small window,” Erhenberg said.
Despite it all, Mireles’ supporters were still all smiles. The flame of hope may have dimmed that morning, but it remains steadfast all these years later.
And, in all his years as an investigator, Parker said he hasn’t encountered a case as egregious as this before.
“I’ve never seen a law enforcement investigation this bad,” Parker said. “In fact, I would say that it’s more than bad, it is intentional.”
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
———————————————————————————————
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
