Pubdate: Thu, 12 Nov 1998
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Copyright: 1998 Houston Chronicle
Author: JAMES PINKERTON

BROWNSVILLE POLICE OFFICER CHARGED IN SLAYING

Woman Disappeared Following Bizarre Events

BROWNSVILLE -- A veteran police officer was charged Wednesday in the
slaying of a Brownsville woman who disappeared following a bizarre case in
which she had claimed kidnappers lured her across the border, drugged her,
delivered her baby and then stole him.

Roberto G. Briseno, 44, a 19-year veteran of the Brownsville patrol
division, was arrested on the job Wednesday and charged with the murder of
Laura Lugo, police said.

"This is very hard for us," said police spokesman Eddie Garcia.

Police declined to give any details or alleged motive for the killing.

Lugo was 28 when she vanished from her Brownsville home in December 1994,
about three months after she had won custody of her 2-year-old son. The
child had been taken by kidnappers with ties to a Mexican drug-trafficking
cartel.

On Wednesday, Cameron County District Attorney Yolanda De Leon confirmed
that skeletal remains found in a brushy area of north Brownsville in June
1995 have now been positively identified as Lugo. The skeleton had six
bullet wounds in the skull.

The prosecutor said officer Briseno was charged with first degree murder,
in addition to federal mail fraud charges. He was held without bond at
Cameron County Jail pending arraignment on the murder charge.

Also charged with Lugo's murder is Janet Ramirez Lozano, a 28-year-old
Brownsville woman who was already jailed on welfare fraud charges, the
district attorney said.

For the past six years, police on both sides of the Rio Grande have
investigated the cross-border kidnapping case, which began when Lugo told
authorities her son had been delivered by Caesarean section against her
will at a Matamoros clinic.

Lugo claimed she was 81/2 months pregnant when she was drugged by a Mexican
doctor at the clinic in September 1992. She had been lured to the clinic,
she said, by two sisters she had befriended. The women, Paulyna and Rosa
Botello, had insisted that Lugo get a pre-natal checkup, Lugo told police.

When she awoke, Lugo said, the sisters where gone and had taken her child.

In July 1994, FBI agents served a Mexican police warrant on Paulyna
Botello, at her McAllen residence and found a toddler she claimed was her
biological son. However, DNA testing determined the boy was Lugo's and the
mother and son were reunited after a custody battle.

Eleven weeks later, Lugo disappeared.

The Botellos' brother, Miguel Botello, was a hitman and courier for the
Juan Garcia Abrego drug-trafficking cartel. Miguel Botello and Garcia
Abrego are currently serving time in federal prison.

The sisters were convicted on child-trafficking charges in Mexico and
placed on three years probation.

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