AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Authorities say they believe a man arrested in connection with a Pflugerville murder earlier this month may be connected to several other cases - with a lengthy criminal record dating back nearly 50 years across the Austin area.
62-year old Raul Meza, Jr. was taken into custody by the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force on Monday. He's accused of fatally stabbing 80-year old Jesse Fraga at his home in Pflugerville; authorities found Fraga dead in his home on May 20 after performing a check welfare call.
Meza called authorities and confessed to Fraga's murder on May 24, along with the murder of 66-year old Gloria Loftin in East Austin in May 2019. With his arrest Monday, he was booked into the Travis County Jail early Tuesday morning on two first degree felony murder charges along with a state jail felony charge of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
Since identifying him as a person of interest in Fraga's death, authorities have pieced together a lengthy criminal history for Meza, including a 1982 case where Meza plead guilty to the rape and murder of 8-year old Kendra Page at a southeast Austin elementary school. He served 11 years of a 30-year sentence before being released from prison in 1993. He was arrested again in 1994 for a parole violation and was released again in 2016.
Bruce Mills, who now serves as Austin's interim assistant city manager, was the primary investigator on the Page case in 1982. He recalled the "travesty of justice" upon Meza's release in 1993. "Here's a serial killer that justice was not served," Mills said Tuesday afternoon.
Austin Police officials say they're now looking into as many as 8-10 cold cases that have similarities to the Fraga and Loftin deaths.
