A walk down the dark side, House of Death

2. February 2010 by admin.

 Take a walk down a little-known street, 3633 Calle Parsioneros. The house is located in a middle-class neighborhood of Juarez and it is the location of a murder spree, one that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would closely monitor.
It began on a hot summer afternoon and ended in winter with several DEA agents’ lives in peril. The secret would not be revealed until one DEA agent put pen to paper, Sandalio Gonzalez. This case began the way most do. Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro or ‘Lalo’ would be known as informant 913. His new job was spying on his boss and delivering tape-recorded conversations to his ICE handler, Raul Bencomo.
“The government’s reckless attitude for Lalo’s life was astonishing. Each time he crossed into Juarez his life was in danger. But each time Lalo came in for debriefing he had a lot of credible information for us,” Bencomo said. “If I had to talk about his honesty, I’d say he was honest 90 percent of the time.”
Lalo’s attorney, Jodi Goodwin, concurred, “Lalo was responsible for more than 60 arrests and convictions as well as millions of dollars in product and cash that were confiscated.”
When it came to informants, Lalo was reliable. He showed up on time, provided good information and only expected a fair price for the work he performed for the U.S. government. According to his attorney, Goodwin and a reliable source close to the case, Lalo is owed more than $500,000 from the government.
Lalo explains ICE placed his life in harms way a number of times. “They (ICE) didn’t understand my position with the recorder, I couldn’t just turn it on or off in front of Santillan without drawing suspicion. After the first murder I was told to keep going but try to not record any more murders. This was very dangerous,” Lalo explains from his new home at an ICE detention facility.
Don’t record any more murders was the ICE supervisors concern. They didn’t seem too concerned with human life, according to Lalo. The first murder to be taped should have been the last, but ICE got greedy, in fact Lalo was working concurrent case involving cigarettes and ICE Associate Special Agent in Charge Patty Kramer and Special Agent in Charge John Gaudioso shockingly thought this case “would make their careers,” according to ICE Agent Bencomo.
It was here that Bencomo wanted out. When Lalo came in for the not-so-routine debriefing, Bencomo and his supervisors had to listen to the recording of a murder. “It was so graphic that I got physically ill and had to throw up,” Bencomo explained. “I wanted out. After the first murder I didn’t want to be a part of this, however I was ordered to stick with it.”
Once the House of Death case came to its conclusion, Lalo and his common-law wife and two children were brought into the United States to start their new lives.

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