A Texas man convicted of killing a little girl was released early from prison in the 1990s for good behavior. He went on to murder at least two more people.
On Monday, Raul Meza Jr., 63, pleaded guilty to killing 65-year-old Gloria Lofton in 2019, and his 82-year-old roommate Jesse Fraga in 2023.
“I am pleading guilty, because I am guilty,” Meza said in court. He refused to address the victims’ families, stating that he did not feel the need to apologize to someone who wouldn’t accept his apology.
Meza served a decade in prison for the 1982 murder of 8-year-old Kendra Page. When police arrested him in May 2023 for the murders of Fraga and Lofton, investigators believed he could be linked to up to 10 additional cold case murders.
But on Monday, officials told KXAN that cold case investigators used DNA to rule out eight cases that took place between 1979 and 2021.
Meza’s plea means he is not eligible for parole, nor is he able to file an appeal on the case. But he will avoid the death penalty, over the objections of the victims’ family members who wanted him to go to trial.
“A lifetime in jail will not be equal to the pain," the families have experienced, Loftin’s daughter, Sonia Houston, said in a statement she read in court. “By accepting this plea, we are giving Raul exactly what he wants.”
Who is Raul Meza Jr.?
Meza’s criminal history dates back to 1975 when he was just 15 years old.
The teen shot and injured Derly Ramirez, a store attendant, during a robbery at the South Congress Avenue convenience store on New Year’s Eve, the American-Statesman reported.
Meza was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1976, but served just five years before he was released on parole – shortly before he killed 8-year-old Kendra Page in 1982 in Austin, who authorities said had been strangled and sexually assaulted.
He accepted a plea agreement in which he admitted to the murder and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but only served 11.
Meza’s early release from prison in 1993 caused an uproar throughout Texas, and he was met by protesters at nearly every turn. Picketers drove him out of six cities, sometimes with threats of violence.
“In my heart, I know that I will not willfully bring harm to anyone,” Meza said during an August 1993 news conference after he had been driven out of the community.
Austin police said Meza called them in May 2023 and confessed to killing Fraga and implicated himself in the 2019 sexual assault and killing of Lofton.
“Here’s a serial killer that justice was not served. It was a travesty of justice,” Interim Assistant City Manager Bruce Mills, who was also the primary investigator on the 1982 Page case, said in May 2023.
The murder of 8-year-old Kendra Page
Kendra was a spunky eight-year-old little girl and had her whole life ahead of her when she was taken from her family in 1982.
She was last seen riding her bike near Langford Elementary School.
Her brother Cary Page was 17 years old when his sister was killed. He remembers seeing her ride off on her bike. A few hours later, he heard an ambulance. His sister’s nude body had been found in a dumpster, beaten and bruised.
"It was not a pretty sight. I can’t get that picture out of my head," Cary Page told KVUE.
Meza turned himself in to Austin police a few days after the girl’s body was found.
“[She was] a spunky, outgoing little 8-year-old that Raul Meza took her away from us,” Page’s sister, Tracy Goldstein, said.
“She could have turned out to be the best one in the entire family. She was awesome. And now, she don’t have that chance. And she just lost that entire chance because of him," their brother Kevin Page added.
Meza was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but released after just 11, something that enraged Kendra’s family.
“I think our court system really did us wrong,” Kevin Page said. “There was no justice for my little sister, for my family. There was no justice at all, and all he got was a slap on the wrist.”
Meza’s roommate Jesse Fraga found dead in 2023
Jesse Fraga, 80, a retired Travis County probation officer, was found dead in his Pflugerville home on May 20, 2023, after his niece called the Pflugerville Police Department for a welfare check.
It was later revealed that Fraga and Meza had known each other since the 1990s and he had taken Meza in and tried to help him re-enter society after he was released from prison in the Page case, KXAN reported.
Meza was identified as a person of interest and he eventually turned himself in.
While in custody, he implicated himself in the 2019 death of Gloria Lofton, according to his arrest affidavit.
On that call, he talked about being in and out of prison throughout his life, and said after his most recent release in 2016, “I ended up murdering a lady soon afterward… It was on Sara Drive.”
The mysterious death of Gloria Lofton
Lofton’s 2019 murder had long been a mystery – until Meza allegedly confessed to her murder while in custody for the killing of his roommate.
The 65-year-old was found dead in her bedroom at her home east of downtown Austin on May 9, 2019. The medical examiner found evidence that she may have been strangled, but the cause and manner of death were listed as undetermined, according to the affidavit obtained by NBC News.
Her children told NBC they received few details from the police and came to believe Lofton, who had a troubled relationship with alcohol, according to her daughter, may have had an alcohol-related accident while she was drinking.
They claimed they heard nothing from authorities about their mother’s death until Meza’s alleged confession — when he told investigators that he killed a woman on the street where Lofton lived, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit also revealed details the siblings were not aware of – that a sexual assault kit was used on Lofton during her autopsy, and in 2020, a DNA profile from a vaginal swab provided a match to Meza.
After Meza’s confession, Lofton’s cause and manner of death were changed to homicide by strangulation, according to the affidavit.
Interim Austin Police Chief Robin Henderson said the department was “deeply sorry” about the oversight linked to the DNA report. No explanation for the error was provided.
“We realize the impact this has on the case itself, community and most importantly the victims and their families,” Henderson said. “As soon as the error was brought to our attention, we addressed it as quickly as we could to identify how it happened and implemented policies to avoid incidents like this from reoccurring. Since this occurrence, the Austin Police Department has added redundancies into the notification process to ensure this does not happen again.”
