Dallas (1080 KRLD) - 24-years after Juana Parga of Dallas was slashed to death in her pickup truck, the killer is being held accountable.
A jury has sentenced Ruben Labrada, 52 Muskogee, OK, to life in prison for killing Juana "Catalina" Parga, who was his ex-lover and who happened to be the wife of Labrada's brother.
The murder happened May 5, 1997, shortly after Paraga left for work. Along the way, she picked up Labrada, and the two wound up in a parking lot at White Rock Lake.
The stabbing was witnessed by Lisa Kreit, who was a 17-year-old who happened to pull into the parking lot as the murder was unfolding.
"I look in. And as I get out I saw, what I thought was a man sitting in the car. And I just immediately knew what was going on," Kreit testified. "So I jumped back in my car, with the trunk still open, and reversed out and raced next door to a church."
In the days before everyone had a cell phone, it was at the church that Kreit found a payphone and called the police. She then returned to the park where she saw a man on rollerblades. By that time Labrada was gone. Kreit asked the man to check on the woman's condition. The skater at first thought Kreit was kidding.
"He went to the driver's side and leaned in the window and said 'Oh crap, her throat is slit," Kreit said.
Police had suspicions but no solid evidence to tie the murder to LaBrada.
They also did not know about Labrada's friend, Manuel Atuirre, who testified that Labrada had come to the store where he worked and confessed to the murder. Atuirre said he expected police to contact him, but nobody ever did. So he kept quiet.
In 2018 a cold case unit dusted off the file and took another look at the evidence. DNA from the crime scene was submitted to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences which scored a match against Labrada.
The former Dallas man was tracked down to a home in Muskogee where he was arrested.
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