*The Devil Behind the Badge* by Rick Jervis is a gripping and haunting account of the horrific murders of four sex workers by Juan David Ortiz, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. Jervis takes readers through the chilling timeline of these murders, revealing the shocking betrayal of a man sworn to protect the community. This fast-paced true crime story not only chronicles the investigation that led to Ortiz’s arrest but also explores broader issues such as law enforcement corruption, the abuse of power, and the complex dynamics of the border crisis.

Jervis masterfully balances the investigation's suspense with a deep, empathetic portrayal of the victims, shedding light on their lives and the tragic loss they left behind. The book is a powerful reminder of how darkness can hide in plain sight, even within trusted institutions. It’s a must-read for fans of true crime and anyone interested in the complexities of law enforcement and justice. The chilling tale will leave readers thinking long after they finish the book.

Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Luera, Guiselda Alicia "Chelly" Cantu, and Janelle Ortiz were the women killed by a U.S. Border Patrol officer. Erika Peña was able to escape him otherwise she very realistically could have been murdered as well. I loved that Jervis focused on each woman separately and showed each as an individual not just a victim. They were all loved and cherished by their family and friends. A little bit of time is spent on their murderer but the vast majority of the book is spent on the women who lost their lives and Erika.

I do wish there had been a little more time spent on the trial, but that's my only complaint. If you enjoy True Crime nonfiction that reads like a novel, pick up The Devil Behind the Badge.

This is an intense true story that I felt started very good but sort of dragged on a bit. It's not an easy topic to review and can be viewed as disturbing to some since it covers dark horror and tragedy. I felt for the women and their lives that just couldn't be righted and the 'wrong place wrong time' vibe was just sad.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to reivew.

This interested me at first, but then it became boring and started dragging. There was a lot of compelling information and storytelling elements, but I didn’t really understand why this was made into a book.

I also didn’t like that he didn’t have any interviews from the border patrol officials and he didn’t talk to the serial killer. He mostly relied on accounts from the victims’ families and some outsiders. This felt like lazy reporting or not enough of a story for this to actually warrant a book.

This was OK, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend.

This case will have you gripping the arms of your chair!

What a read. This was a roller coaster of a ride, and readers will be shocked by the turns this crime will take. From the battlefield to the desert, Juan David Ortiz was well-thought of. He had a good reputation and was climbing the ranks within Border Patrol.
There were some quirks that co-workers noticed, but nothing that ever stuck out as truly odd. What no one knew, Ortiz was suffering from PTSD, and without the proper help, was starting to delve into a darker hole.

Oh my, what a read. This was truly heartbreaking in many ways. The author has done a great job in putting the entire story together, and bringing humanity into the words as well. For those that enjoy true crime, this is a good read. In some ways it is difficult, as there are multiple ways some can identify with Ortiz - soldiers, veterans, medical personnel. However, the lack of care, and the mental health care that was needed stuck out here.

Prepare for a read that will stay with you for a very long time.

This is a story that deserves to be told. There are true crime books that read like fiction; this is not one of them. It's a great read for those of us who like "just the facts, ma'am", but there are times where I wish we had more connection to the players. We get a lot of information about the victims, but very little about the defendant. I guess that's to be expected when he won't speak with the author, but it left us all wondering why. Prosecutors don't have to prove motive in a criminal trial, but in a lengthy book, the reader really wants to know why. Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read this book early in exchange for an honest review.

**⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ | A Chilling True Crime Account**

*The Devil Behind the Badge* offers a gripping and unsettling look into the terrifying case of the Border Patrol serial killer. The book meticulously details the horrifying events that unfolded over twelve days, capturing the fear and tension experienced by the community and law enforcement. The author provides a well-researched and engaging narrative that delves into the mind of the killer and the challenges faced by those working to stop him. While the graphic content may be difficult for some readers, the book’s compelling storytelling and thorough investigation make it a must-read for true crime enthusiasts.

Truly a heartbreaking story. The author gives so much care when writing about the victims and their family. He tells the story of each victim and their true lives, not just what the bad side could show. Great read on the truth of crime and murder.

The little-told true story of a Border Patrol Agent who went on a horrific 12 day murder spree, killing 4 women before he was caught.

Well written - while it was nonfiction, it was a narrative nonfiction that made it compelling to read. I enjoyed/needed all of the background, but some of that was kind of weighty.

Often, when women of color are m*rdered, their stories are left untold. This felt like an important book to help people know their names.

I have been on a true crime kick lately and heard good things about this book.

I really appreciate how the author shared the lives of the murdered women and made them the focal point of the book. Yes, we found out his upbringing and how he got in a dark place. But the women's live were also important. I think in a lot of true crime the victims end up in the shadow and that's how killers are glorified.

It broke my heart to read the parts with the murders because each woman was trying to get out their current state in life. They wanted to get clean and help themselves and their families. They just needed more support and maybe one more chance would've done it.

Jervis also shares the history of the area and the current political state of the United States at the time. I think it helped explain how things like this can happen and continue to happen.

Thank you to NetGalley and Dey Street Books for the opportunity to read The Devil Behind the Badge. Thank you to Rick Jervis for letting the lives of these innocent women be shared. I have written this review voluntarily.

A great true crime thriller. The story is well-done and provides the human side of the victims as well as the killer. The story is fast paced and will hold your interest. A great read for the true crime enthusiast.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

The opening chapter made me want to give up on this book. It was so bewildering what was going on, the Spanglish, the names of people that I didn't know how they related to the story.....but I persisted.

And I am glad that I persisted. This is one of my favorite true crime novels of the year!

The author did a great job of telling the stories of the victims from a human point of view. Yes they were addicts. yes, they were sex workers, but they had hopes, dreams, families and friends who loved them and the author did a great job bringing that home to the reader .

The backgrounds of the victims and the killer was the first part of the book, then the manhunt for the killer. Then the trial. It was all very neatly organized and I appreciated the effort of not rehashing everything again just for the trail.

This is a good, well written true crime book that really makes the victims feel like your family.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy of the e-book.
This is my favorite type of true crime, narrative non-fiction, sticks to the facts and leaves no stone uncovered. Some reviewers bashed the author’s writing style, but I think it’s the appropriate style for this subject matter. It’s not going to be flowery prose, it’s journalistic.
I give this a well done 5⭐️.

I wanted to like this book. I just could not get into it for some reason.

I received an advance review copy for free (thank you NetGalley), and I am leaving this review voluntarily. All opinions are my own.

I run into a lot of books which try and get too cute with the narrative. Just tell the story. No storytelling tricks. No time jumps. Just tell an engaging story. Rick Jervis does this to perfection in The Devil Behind the Badge. Oh, he does something else which all great true crime does. He honors the victims and tells their story. In this case, it's not all roses.

The story is about how Border Patrol Agent Juan David Ortiz took the lives of four sex workers, Melissa Ramirez, Claudine Anne Luera, Guiselda Hernandez, and Janelle Ortiz (no relation). Jervis makes sure to tell everyone's story. For the sex workers, Jervis chronicles their drug addictions, attempts to get clean, and the families who tried to love them through it. For Ortiz, we get the background of a Veteran, fighting off demons, but with some sort of murderous urge he gives into. Jervis tries to answer as many questions as possible about this case, but he also acknowledges that much of it is unknowable.

Quite simply, this is just a journalist giving you all the facts. If you want well-written true crime which doesn't forget the victims, then this book is for you.

(This book was provided as an advance copy by Netgalley and Dey Street Books.)

Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Dey Street Books, and Rick Jervis for the advanced reader copy of the book. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.

I was about a third of the way through The Devil Behind the Badge when I had to call my daughter-in-law who grew up in Laredo, Texas, and ask her if it was as bad as this book was making it seem. We all know that drugs are a problem everywhere, but this was making it seem like drugs and prostitution were openly ignored by local law enforcement. She assured me it was not that bad and it was a rather nice city.

The Devil Behind the Badge tells the story of a series of killings in a twelve-day period in 2018 targeting sex workers in Laredo. The perpetrator was a Border Patrol supervisor whose mental deterioration seemed to go unnoticed by those he worked with. Rick Jervis reported on the killings, manhunt, and trial for USA Today and through that coverage and additional interviews has crafted a thrilling story to read. It took me a bit to get into it. That first third of the book set the scene for what was going to happen for the most part, and the book got much better from there.

I read a review that was critical of the author for how he portrayed Juan David Ortiz, the man who murdered four sex workers in a twelve-day period. All I can say is that person must not have read the book. Jervis is fair in that he paints Ortiz as guilty, but also gives background of what might have led him to this point. Ortiz served his country as a Navy Corpsman in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was on the front lines of the Iraq invasion, and as a medic saw a lot of the worst part of the war. He came back from there still wanting to serve his country. Part of his motivation for joining the Border Patrol was to help the migrants who were crossing the border.

How did he go from that to a serial killer? You’ll have to read the book. It seems to be a combination of many factors that led to that point, not the least of which was the residual effects of his service. Having lived through PTSD, depression, and anxiety myself, I can say the portrayal of Ortiz’s mental deterioration resonated with me.

I also liked Jervis’ depiction of the sex workers. Much as I’ve tried to help people understand that drug addicts have people who love them and care about them, Jervis does the same here with the four women who were killed. He gives the background of each and what led them to be on the streets selling their bodies to support their drug habits. A common theme is trauma and a desire to self-medicate to escape it.

I can’t say I enjoyed The Devil Behind the Badge but it was a good read. When writing about the crime, it’s more like a neutral observer seeing the tragedy all around in what happened. I can have sympathy for Ortiz in what he went through that led to the killing spree, and still see him as someone who needs to be behind bars.

This book was too much for me. It's a horror and a tragedy, and Rick Jervis just I'm sorry but Rick you are probably not the author to write this. It's certainly a thing that happened and should be out there in some way, but the writing, it is not polished or absorbing. It has this metronome quality to it, obviously trying to rack up a page count on this one. Rick is a journalist and I have to say, I do not think there's enough of a story here to warrant a book. It's a ton of background information, a lot of speculation unless Juan Ortiz has admitted to saying some very specific things, but it could probably just be a long newspaper article. Maybe a multi part piece or a podcast. It's just misery on a grand scale for way too long. Cut out the gratuitous horror and you've got about 50 pages maximum. There is a lot of biographical information and it's all painful and I just wasn't sure what the point of reading or especially writing any of it was. It feels like Rick was going for Truman Capote but this is just not that, at all. Not by a long shot. I don't think the author was able to interview the killer so we aren't getting any kind of insight into what made him operate. There is conjecture and it boils down to shitty beer and PTSD.

The murderer here isn't saying or doing anything that necessitates a book. It seems like from the beginning the authorities were after him pretty dilligently, there's no conspiracy or a societal failure that needs looking into. It's just tragedy. I hope the proceeds here are going to some kind of outreach program to help people get clean. This story just isn't worth the steady onslaught of despair that you are going to endure. The guy kills a bunch of addicts who are sex workers, and is caught. The end.

This is a well-written true crime book about a serial killer in Texas who is murdering sex workers. After killing 4 people, the twist is that the killer turns out to be a border patrol agent. How could this happen and what was behind it? The author brings the story to life with his details and research.

A border patrol gets the job he wanted. Using all the tools at his disposal. Turns Laredo's residents life’s in danger.

The Devil Behind the Badge is the shocking true-crime story of a U.S. Border Patrol agent turned serial killer, the four sex workers whom he mercilessly killed, and the upended border town of Laredo where his heinous crimes occurred.

Wow, what a sad story to read about the lives of the women who were killed and the coverup and lack of interest in holding individuals with authority to accountability.

The book included interesting background information, the history of the border patrol, and the towns and locations.

The author laid out the story well, giving families the opportunity to discuss their loved ones who died. I felt like I was watching an episode of Dateline or a true crime show, as the story was told so well and in such rich detail.

I would recommend The Devil Behind the Badge not only for its solid storytelling but also for its insight into these individuals' lives and for learning about the history of the town and the border patrol.

#TheDevilBehindtheBadge #NetGalley @deystreet