He contacted two Mexican hitmen from Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Israel Olivarez Cepeda and Heriberto Puentes Pizaña, who killed Fischer and then escaped to Mexico.
[9] Since Los Indios was mostly a ranching community close to the U.S.-Mexico border, Cisneros's religiosity was heavily influenced by curanderismo, a practice of religious and folk medicine healing rooted in ancient Mexican culture.
People consult healers and fortune tellers for help with relationships: to revive their romance, to end a marriage, to make someone fall in love, or to hurt someone.
But, several others who were close to her maintained that after her son died, Cisneros started to show signs of insanity, became more protective of her children, and began visiting local curanderas.
[3][15] Fischer's mother looked out the window to see what had happened, thinking the noise came from one of the house's palm tree branches falling on the roof, or that the car had backfired.
He took a shortcut off Texas highways 77 and 83 to reach the house, and recalled going over 110 miles per hour (180 km/h) at some point, and brushing off a few cars along the way by gesturing with his left hand.
[3] Witnesses, including Eric, recall seeing a short-bearded Hispanic man in his mid-20s driving a white, four-door vehicle with Mexican license plates speeding away after the attack.
[f][18] Initially police believed that the murder was a drive-by shooting,[19] but investigators discovered a tennis shoe print near the outdoor air conditioning unit, and a yellow business card next to Fischer's body.
Alex Perez, the former sheriff of Cameron County, who was appointed to lead the investigation, called the bail office and asked them to fax copies of bond applications made by Rio Grande Valley residents.
His stepfather initially thought that the murder was tied to a legal dispute over a contract worth thousands of dollars he had with a Chinese shrimp firm based in Arroyo City, Texas, just north of Brownsville that he had terminated.
[3][22] Cuellar put the police in contact with Ramiro Moya, a San Antonio resident, who frequented Brownsville, and claimed to know details pertaining to the murder.
Moya led the police to his half-brother Daniel "El Güero" Orlando Garza, a San Antonio painter who frequented Brownsville and Mexico.
The fortune teller, María Mercedes Martínez de Sánchez, consulted with Garza for several sessions in an attempt to repair the relationship he had with his wife.
[42] On July 21, 1993, Mexican State Judicial Police arrested Olivarez, and his brother Alonso Bazaldúa Cepeda, in Matamoros on a December 1992 murder charge, and for the unauthorized use of a vehicle.
Following their release, the Brownsville police said there were reports that the two suspects were seen in Matamoros, and in Monterrey, Nuevo León, and that next time they tried to cross the international bridge, U.S. border agents would arrest them.
Mexican officials said that Olivarez's auto theft ring extended all the way to Monterrey, as well as in Río Bravo, Valle Hermoso, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas.
The defense asked the judge to discard the video and wire tap recordings because they claimed that their client was involuntarily coerced to make statements that incriminated her, and thus violated the Miranda warnings.
[55] Because a new indictment was issued, Cisneros, Martínez, and Garza pleaded not-guilty for a second time, forcing the court proceedings to be pushed back from their original dates.
They stated it was unlikely that these potential jurors had read the articles from the Houston Chronicle, The Dallas Morning News, or The New Yorker magazine, which the defense provided earlier as evidence that Cisneros was depicted negatively.
They pointed out that the police had no written reports of the investigation, and had failed to record the serial numbers and mark the US$100 bills used as evidence when Martínez received the cash from Cisneros immediately before her arrest.
The police defended their actions and said that Garza was initially a witness when investigators met with him and Moya in March 1993 at a motel in San Antonio to discuss the murder.
[72] On March 9, the judge sentenced Cisneros and Garza to life in prison after the jury decided that neither of them posed a threat to society, and thus did not deserve the death penalty.
However, prosecutors failed to word her charge appropriately, suggesting that Cisneros "directly" hired Puentes Pizaña and Olivarez to murder Fischer instead of working through intermediaries.
[93] The FBI did not elaborate initially on the charges, but stated she was indicted by a federal grand jury for using interstate or foreign commerce facilities to orchestrate the murder.
Fischer's mother took the stand and repeated her versions of the story and of the two loud noises she heard before finding her son's corpse covered with blood on the driveway.
In addition to her, other witnesses took the stand to tell the jury their stories, including his stepfather and a gardener, who saw a vehicle with Mexican license plates leaving the house when Fischer was shot dead.
[101] Investigators who worked on the case also testified in court and stated that Martínez cooperated with them to set up a meeting with Cisneros after she assisted her in finding someone to have Fischer killed.
[103] The prosecution brought forward bank statements that showed that Cisneros withdrew US$5,000 from a US$100,000 family safety deposit box on July 7, 1992, and March 3, 1993, the morning Fischer was killed.
The prosecution introduced witnesses, including the motel manager and those at the crime scene, who stated that they saw a white car driven by the suspected assassins coming from Mexico the day before the shooting.
[120] Inside the gymnasium of Fischer's former school is a gold plaque that reads:[1] May the serenity of the peaceful oceans and the warmth of the deep blue skies embrace you in the realms of heaven.