Jury Convicts Mestizo Who Duct-Taped and Raped Children While They Prepared for School

Dallas News
January 31, 2014

A jury on Wednesday convicted a child rapist who was deported in 2009 before he could be tried but was extradited back to Texas last year.

Jose Adan Rico, 38, raped two girls, ages 12 and 14, in separate attacks in their Dallas homes.

Known as the “Five Points serial rapist” for a section of northeast Dallas, he preyed on girls when they were alone and getting ready for school.

Authorities said he would bind them with duct tape, rape them at gunpoint and make them wait in a bathtub or shower afterward.

“He took a 12-year-old’s body and then disregarded her in the shower,” Assistant District Attorney Carmen White said.

Rico was arrested in March 2009, shortly after the second attack, but he posted bond and was deported months later before he could stand trial.

Last spring, U.S. marshals arrested Rico in Mexico and returned him to Dallas.

Testimony in his trial began Tuesday and focused Wednesday on the DNA evidence against Rico and an initial contaminated test.

Detectives found DNA evidence on both victims that was later linked to the Mexican national when he was arrested on a burglary charge in March 2009, months after the second assault.

While prosecutors say a second test confirmed the match, defense attorney Vic Cunningham argued that the same technician who handled the first rape kit also performed the second test, bringing both into question.

“It’s human nature to predict the answer we want to see,” Cunningham said.

But investigators also had a partial license plate number that matched Rico’s car, and when they searched his vehicle, they found a pair of white cloth gloves, a dark brown glove and clear duct tape, said White, the prosecutor.

During testimony, jurors learned that Rico bound the victims with clear duct tape and taped their eyes shut, telling one of them, “I have a gun. I will kill you.”

Jurors found Rico guilty Wednesday but could not decide whether he put his victims in fear of being killed or kidnapped. Had they come to that conclusion, Rico would have faced a sentence of life without parole.

Instead, he faces a life sentence but will be eligible for parole in 30 years. District Judge Mike Snipes is scheduled to sentence Rico on Feb. 20.