Do Not Forget Lesly Palacio

Episode 19 - Do Not Forget Lesly Palacio

[Shaun]

By August 29th, 2020 COVID lockdowns were starting to loosen up in places, and I think we can all agree we were all ready to get out of the house and have some fun. Lesly Palacio has just finished her training to be a phlebotomist and was extra ready to let loose and have a good time.

[John]

When her long-time family friend Erick Rangel Ibarra called her, as he often did, and asked if she wanted to go downtown, she agreed to go because “why not?” She was ready to just get out of the house.

10 hours later, she was missing without a trace.

[Shaun] 

Hi, and welcome to Sins and Survivors, a Las Vegas true crime podcast, where we focus on cases that deal with domestic violence. I’m your host, Shaun, and with me as always, is the one and only John.

[John] 

I am the only John in the room.

[Shaun] 

I know the theme of this season has seemed to be about sisters. This week’s case involves 4 sisters who all love and miss Lesly. And, it’s heartbreaking that we are about to bring you yet another story where a woman was just about to move into the next phase of her life — her star was on the rise – and someone close to her killed her. 

Lesly Palacio was born on May 5th, 1999. Her mother’s name is Aracely Palacio, and Lesly is the second oldest of Araceli’s 5 girls. Karely is the oldest, born in 1997, then Lesly. Kaly was born in 2006, Nayelli was born in 2004, and Ashley is the youngest, born in 2009

Lesly and her older sister Karely had always been very close, but she was also extremely giving, nurturing, and motherly toward her younger sisters

Lesly went to what’s called Basic High School, now called the Basic Academy of International Studies, and graduated in 2017. 

A bunch of my former students went to Basic High School so I want to just take a second to say for the folks who aren’t familiar – that the name of the school is Basic, it’s not an adjective describing the school. John and I are going to talk a little bit about Henderson history and the Basic Magnesium plant in our bonus content this week. 

After Lesly graduated from Basic, she enrolled in Las Vegas College to become a phlebotomist.

[John]

She told her younger sister Kaly “It’s very fun, I can legally poke people now”. One of her instructors in the program commented on how much she loved drawing blood. She finished the program on August 28th, 2020.

The medical profession took a huge hit during the pandemic. We knew a couple of people who were nurses who walked away from their profession because it was just too stressful and dangerous with the risk of COVID, so it's pretty amazing and impressive that she chose to run toward the medical profession at that time.

Given what we’ve read about her though, it isn't surprising because she was a very caring and nurturing person.

[Shaun] 

Whenever we cover a case, we always try to highlight the victim to give a sense of what type of person they were. Too many times, the coverage focuses on the perpetrator, and the richness of the victim's life can get lost in the sensational coverage.

We mentioned Lesly was very nurturing of her younger sisters, but we wanted to give a few examples. She often cooked for her sisters, and if she wasn't home to cook for them, she was sure to call to make sure they’d eaten. 

Before the pandemic, she’d shoo her mother out of the kitchen as she was making dinner after a long day of work. Her mom worked in hospitality for a hotel, so she worked long hours, and Lesly didn't want her to have to cook after those long shifts. 

[John]

Las Vegas is just about as highly dependent on tourism as you’ve probably guessed, so when the pandemic hit and the “non-essential” businesses closed, a disproportionately high number of people lost their jobs. At the height of the pandemic, unemployment in the Las Vegas area was nearly 34%. 34%!!! That means more than one in three people were out of work here. It was by FAR the highest in the nation. It was also the slowest to recover in the nation

Nobody was visiting, nobody was gaming, and nobody was staying in the hotels.

Her mother was furloughed along with so many others, and it was Lesly who encouraged her to open a cleaning business as a backup plan and kept reminding her that everything would be alright.

Lesly, as the second-oldest, was the peacemaker in the family, a common trait among middle children. They’re often known to have high levels of empathy and the ability to see both sides.

[Shaun]

I have a younger sister and she’s like that too, so I can relate. And, I know the fun and the chaos that can come along with a household with a bunch of sisters, all close in age. 

She was also into fitness and would take her sisters to the gym or on hikes. During the pandemic, they’d exercise in the backyard, and she even taught her mom exercise routines during that time.

We’ve heard it said a few times that she was the “joy of the family”

As we mentioned before, the Palacios and the Rangel-Ibarras were long-time family friends. Karely said they’d been friendly for 10 years, and Bianca Garcia, Lasly’s cousin was quoted as saying it was more like 15 years and pointed out that Erick Rangel-Ibarra’s Mother was Lesly’s godmother, so they were very close. 

[John]

Erick Rangel Ibarra is about 3 years older than Lesly. In December 2018, he was convicted of possession of a dangerous weapon, and sentenced to 364 days in the Clark County Detention Center, but his sentence was suspended. He was given probation (not to exceed 3 years). 

According to the sentencing document in addition to checking in with his parole officer, he was prohibited from using intoxicants, using controlled substances, possessing weapons, moving his place of residence without prior written permission from the court, and associating with anyone convicted of a felony. Remember this, it'll be important later.

Lesly’s younger sister Kaly and her mother both commented that they never liked Erick and that he would act very creepily toward Lesly. Her mom said he had “a darkness” and her sister said he would stare at her, and stalk her.

[Shaun]

Lesly graduated from her program on August 28th, 2020, as we mentioned. Between the successful completion of the program and the fact that The pandemic lockdowns were loosening up at the time, she was extra ready to get out of the house for a celebration.

Lesly was texting her friends trying to find someone to get together with. She got a message from Erick, who asked her if she wanted to hang out downtown, and she agreed. Her sister Karely was not happy about that. 

Their first stop was the Longhorn Casino on Boulder Highway in Henderson, arriving around 12:20 a.m. They had drinks and ate at the diner in the Casino. Later, Detective Gary King would characterize them as “drinking heavily”. They left the Longhorn around 2:00 am after being seen on security footage at 1:56 a.m.

[John]

Next up was Putters Bar and Grill on Charleston and Sloan which is a small bar and gaming restaurant that’s about a 15-minute drive from the Longhorn. 

We have a lot of these here in Las Vegas. We’ve got these pub-like places like PT’s, Sammy’s, and Apache Joe’s and they’re usually bars or (bars with limited restaurant menus) with some gaming like video poker and slot machines. There aren't any table games or anything at these places.

They got to Putters around 2:15 a.m., and it's not clear when they left. Next, they went to Bourbon Street on Charleston and Nellis around 4:30 am and left around 5:45 am. All of these destinations are on the far east side of Las Vegas

Lesly had kept in touch with her sister Karely via text throughout the night and into the early morning of August 29th, and at 4:40 am Lesly texted, “I need to talk to you about some shit.”, to which Karely replied  “What happened?”, within a minute of the text coming in. She saw the three dots indicating Lesly was replying, but the reply never came.

[Shaun]

By mid-morning Lesly still hadn't returned home, and her family was starting to get worried. Karely and her sisters were calling Lesly but the calls were going straight to voicemail. Between 10 and 11, Aracely and Karely headed over to the Range-Ibarra house to see if they could find out where Lesly was.

They knocked, but no one answered.

They came back an hour later and saw Erick’s mother (remember that’s Lesly’s godmother) and Erick’s sister moving furniture out of the house and loading it onto a truck. One of the women was wearing rubber gloves, like gloves you’d use for cleaning.

According to an interview that Aracely gave when she reached out to Erick’s mother trying to find Erick and Lesly, she dismissed Aracely with quite an attitude. Aracely paraphrased her as having said “why are you asking about my son? My son is an adult” which is a pretty weird response to someone trying to find their missing daughter who was last seen with that very son.

Karely was told by the Police she had to wait 48 hours to file a missing person report, which she finally did. 

On August 31st, the Rangel-Ibarra family also filed a missing person report for BOTH Erick and his father, Jose, who had apparently also gone missing.

[John]

The Police then began the investigation attempting to track where the two had been, when, and where they might have ended up. Now they had several missing persons, and they were considering this possible foul play.

The Police attempted to track down surveillance footage in the neighborhood and luckily they got a break almost immediately. On the 31st of August, they recovered footage from a video camera across the street from the Rangel-Ibarra house where Erick, his father Jose, and his mother lived.

The camera angle is from two houses away from the Rangel-Ibarras, and luckily the camera angle clearly includes the Rangel-Ibarra’s driveway and front yard. 

The Rangel-Ibarra home is a two-story, 1374 square foot 3 bedroom home located about 15 minutes from the Longhorn Casino on Tipper Ave, a very narrow street with no street parking to have obstructed the camera’s view. 

The homes in that neighborhood are very close together, only 6’ apart, and they have small single-car garages. They don't have much of a front hard, just 2 feet or so of rocks and a couple of small plants. The front doors of the homes aren't visible when looking at them straight on since they’re on the side of the house.

The neighbor’s camera footage showed Erick’s white Ford F-150 pickup pulling up to the front of the house at 6:04 a.m. Erick can be seen getting out of the truck and walking around to the passenger side where he helps Lesly out of the car. She is very unsteady on her feet as Erick is being helped by Erick as they walk up to the house.

At 6:48 a.m., just 45 minutes later, Erick was seen coming out of the house alone. He tossed something small, about the size of his hand into the passenger side of the truck, and then he drove off, returning at 7:09 a.m.

At 7:24 a.m. Erick could be seen dragging what was determined to be Lesly’s body wrapped in a sheet out of the house and across the driveway, being helped by his father Jose. Together, they put her in the passenger side of the truck, and Jose could be seen forcing the door closed. Erick then sped off.

Just a few minutes later, at 7:29 a.m. the camera captured Jose pulling out a hose and washing off the driveway and rocks in front of the house. The detective on the case, Gary King noted that the area being washed was the same path they had dragged the body along.

[Shaun]

As a result of the surveillance video, on September 2nd, search warrants were issued and executed at the Rangel-Ibarra house, as well as at Erick’s sister’s apartment. 

From the descriptions given by detectives, it sounds like the family was in the process of packing up or cleaning out the house. In general, from the photos I’ve seen, the house looked to be in a state of disarray, with cleaning supplies photographed on various tables or on desks and dressers all around the house, and both full and empty trash bags and other items strewn about, covering and cluttering the floor and most surfaces of the house. Dozens of water bottles, shopping bags, articles of clothing, and so on. 

The police observed a pair of blue latex gloves on the couch that were collected as evidence. The gloves were obviously dirty. They also discovered another pair of latex gloves on the dining room table, which were photographed near a bottle of rubbing alcohol. 

There were 5 or 6 full white kitchen trash bags on the floor of the kitchen filled with various items, which detectives noted appeared to be being used as a way to pack up and move items, instead of say, using cardboard moving boxes. 

They also noticed cleaning supplies were out and around the kitchen, including a bottle of bleach and a mop, and what I would call an industrial mop bucket, a large bright yellow bucket on wheels that a custodian would use. The police observed some dark reddish brown staining on one portion of the mop, and it was also collected for testing. 

[John]

Upstairs, they found Erick’s bedroom (based on items in the room), including his wallet with ID and a casino players’ club card with Erick’s name on it. 

The sheet was missing from his bed, and the police noted drops of blood on the mattress, which were collected for testing. 

There was a white button-down shirt hanging on a rack in Erick’s bedroom that had what the detective called “an apparent blood stain”, those stains were also swabbed and tested. 

Down the hall, they discovered two more blood stains on the floor of the bathroom, and on the vanity was a large bottle of bathroom cleaner. 

There was an open bottle of ammonia observed in the master bedroom as well, along with a roll of white kitchen trash bags, and a pair of false eyelashes. 

It’s not clear from the grand jury testimony if the police collected and tested the eyelashes, but I believe they may have been photographed and later mentioned by detectives during their testimony because, in the photos we’ve seen of Lesly, she is wearing false eyelashes. 

At the time the investigators gave testimony to the grand jury about the search warrant and what was observed, the results of the testing for the mop, gloves, and blood stains were not available. The detective noted that the labs were short-staffed and had a backlog due to Covid. All the results from the evidence they collected have not been made public, except the blood on the mattress was confirmed to be Lesly’s. 

[Shaun]

The police start gathering additional evidence and chasing down further leads to find Lesly and to apprehend Erick and Jose. 

They took a look at Erick’s phone records and discovered that he had called a friend from the Valley of Fire area on the morning of August 29. We are going to call this friend Daniel, since early on in the investigation, he did not want to be identified.

Daniel had been a friend of Erick’s for 5 or 6 years. Early that morning, Daniel got a phone call from a phone number he didn’t recognize. He answered the phone and didn’t immediately recognize the voice, but it was Erick. 

Erick asked Daniel, “Do you remember how I asked you if you would ever do a favor for me?” 

Some context for that question. During his testimony, Daniel explained that about a month earlier, Erick ran into Daniel at a restaurant, while Daniel was on his lunch break. According to Daniel, Erick was drunk. Erick said to Daniel, if I ever need a favor from you, can you do it for me?

Daniel thought this was pretty strange but Erick was drunk so Daniel said like, yeah sure. 

But, when Daniel called the morning of the 29th, it was out of the blue that Erick was calling about this favor. Daniel must be a good friend because he replied, What’s up, what do you need.

Erick said he needed Daniel to bring him some gas. Daniel was really confused by this. It’s a strange request, so he asked Erick for a reason why. Erick explained that he didn’t want to be seen on camera. 

[John]

Daniel was very confused by this, so he kept ‘poking’ at Erick, trying to figure out what was going on. After Daniel asked him a few times, he finally said that he was in Utah. 

Erick finally admits, “I killed a b-word, and I can’t be seen on video surveillance buying gas.” (he used the actual word, but I’m not saying that)

Daniel did not believe Erick, and he told Erick, “You can’t be serious, you’re messing with me”, but Erick repeated it again, and said, one more time, I'm serious, she's dead in the back seat of my truck right now.

Daniel paused because he couldn’t believe what Erick was saying. According to Daniel, Erick sounded so calm, but he kept insisting he was serious and kept pressing Daniel to help him out. 

Daniel told him “Hey man, no sorry, I can’t help you, I have to go pick up my daughter” as an excuse to get off the phone. He also asked ” Why would you call me and say this”

Erick replied it’s a burner phone. Daniel said, “You fucked up by telling me that.” 

Erick then hung up on him. I’m sure that was pretty traumatizing for Daniel. I honestly can't even imagine getting that call.

[Shaun]

One of the clues the police had noticed in the neighbor’s surveillance video of the front of the Rangel-Ibarra house is that when Erick returned after leaving with what is presumed to be Lesly’s body, the tires on his F-150 were all muddy. 

Police were able to get a license plate capture of Erick’s truck’s plate, near the highway exit heading towards the Valley of Fire National Park. His truck was also luckily captured on video surveillance at a gas station about 40 miles north of Las Vegas, near Moapa & the Valley of Fire exit. The police were able to figure out that Erick had exited the highway at that point and then returned to the highway about 20 minutes later. 

Investigators estimated he drove for about 10 minutes before he would have stopped and hidden Lesly’s body. The police used a stopwatch to estimate where along that stretch of road Erick may have possibly pulled over. They were still left with a massive search radius of 40 miles. 

[John]

Just as a reminder, the temperatures in the Valley of Fire in early September can be absolutely brutal and in the full sun of the desert, it can be dangerously hot. The high on September 6 that year was 113 degrees. Luckily tho, the temperatures dropped a bit on September 8 & September 9 when the wind picked up, and the temperature was only a high of 81. 

Las Vegas Metro police together with the Moapa tribal police and Red Rock Search and Rescue searched hundreds of acres of the desert. During the team’s second search on September 9, they were able to finally locate Lesly’s body, after she had been missing for 12 days. She was off of a dirt road, in the middle of a wash, partially concealed from the road by a large bush. 

[Shaun]

Lesly was still wrapped in the sheet just as she had been in the video surveillance. She was not wearing pants, and her underwear had obviously been removed and put back on incorrectly. One of her legs was put through the waistband, so around her waist was one of the leg holes. 

Detective Gary King told the Grand Jury that he had inferred that her underwear had been put on by someone who was unfamiliar with women’s underwear. 

They found a pair of women’s jeans located in a bush several feet away, that were believed to be hers. 

Detectives noted there were heel drag marks in the dirt, which indicated to detectives that Lesly had been pulled from behind by the arms and the chest, and her feet dragged along the desert sand. 

After being exposed to the elements for 12 days, Lesly’s body was badly decomposed. There was no sign of external trauma, and the internal autopsy did not reveal any internal trauma.

The cause & manner of death was ruled “undetermined” at the time of the Grand Jury. During the grand jury testimony, the homicide detective Gary King indicated that the results were pending a toxicology report. 

As of today, there is no update regarding the results of that report or her cause of death. 

[John]

The FBI was called in to help find Erick and Jose. The police leaned into technology heavily to help them trace where the two may have gone. 

Erick’s Ford F-150 was found at a bus station in Perris, California, and was impounded by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. 

The Sheriff’s department reported to Las Vegas Metro that Jose and Erick had spent the night with relatives in Moreno Valley, California, and according to the reports, asked the relatives for help crossing the border into Mexico, but the relatives refused. 

Police used the “Find my iPhone” feature on an iPad found in the Rangel-Ibarra to locate them, and they could see that Jose’s cell phone was in Mexico. 

[Shaun]

The descriptions that follow are based on the grand jury testimony that we obtained.

On January 19th, Jose Rangel surrendered himself to US Customs and Border Patrol at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego California. He waived his Miranda rights and asked to speak to detectives.

He claimed that he had heard about the case while he was in Mexico and that he was wanted in connection to Lesly’s disappearance so he decided to “do the right thing” and turn himself in and he confirmed that his family had known the Palacio family for several years.

Jose went on to make false claims saying that all he remembered was that it looked like Lesly had had “an overdose’, and provided what the detectives called a “watered down” version of his involvement.

At that point in the interview, the detectives confronted Jose with the surveillance video that showed him putting Lesly’s body in the truck and hosing off the driveway,  and it was then that Jose started telling the detectives a very different version of events. He told them he was up early that morning in the garage, and he had heard Erick and a woman who he assumed was Lesly come home and then go upstairs.

Jose stated that 30 minutes later his son came downstairs shirtless and (quote) “freaking out” and dragging Lesly’s body wrapped in a bedsheet. His story is that he decided to help Erick because he was concerned his wife or daughters would see the body and become involved, so he helped put Lesly in Erick’s truck.

The detectives asked if Lesly appeared injured or if she had blood or vomit on her, but Jose claimed not to have noticed. He did say that he noticed that she wasn't wearing pants and her underwear appeared to have been pulled up awkwardly.

He also claimed that he wasn’t cleaning the driveway after Erick left because he was trying to destroy evidence. He said that he didn’t really know what to do with himself and his HOA had recently complained that his yard was dirty, so he decided to start cleaning up while he was standing out there. 

[John]

Jose claimed that he didn’t believe that his wife and daughters had cleaned anything up inside the house and that he wasn’t involved in that at all. He told the police that when Erick had left, he had believed that Erick was going to Utah to “destroy the body”

He was surprised that Erick returned later that afternoon and went over to his sister's apartment. Jose was there as well,  and he claimed that Erick was “acting very weird”, saying he was going to kill himself, or kill Jose and even that people were going to come and kill them and their family.

Erick’s sister Karen confirmed that Erick was acting strangely and seemed in a hurry to leave.

Jose then decided they would get some money and drive together to southern California, and into Mexico. During the drive, Jose claimed that Erick said that he thought Lesly might have overdosed on narcotics or had drunk too much.

He also claimed that while he was in Mexico with Erick, they were on a bus together, and when Mexican federales had all the passengers exit the bus, the two of them separated. Whether that was by choice or due to the circumstances is not clear. 

On February 12, 2021, a Grand Jury was convened to review the evidence against Erick and Jose. During those proceedings, the Grand Jury heard testimony from Lesly’s sister, Karely, and Erick’s friend, Daniel. They shared the details we discussed earlier.

Three homicide detectives also gave testimony – Gary King, Breck Hodson, and Mitchell Dosch, who testified about the investigation - including the surveillance footage and the evidence uncovered during the search of the Rangel-Ibarra home. Testimony also covered the search for Lesly’s body, the results of that search, and the statements Jose had made to the police. 

The Grand Jury viewed the surveillance footage in full and was shown photos of evidence observed at the Rangel-Ibarra home including the gloves, the cleaning supplies, the stained mop, the blood on the shirt and the mattress, and in the bathroom, as well as photos of Lesly after she was found and photos from her autopsy.

Just a note that we have no plans to share those photos

[Shaun]

Toward the end of the proceedings, the jurors had the opportunity to ask questions, and there were several questions about when the results would be available from the testing of the physical evidence. One juror asked if Erick was in Mexico, and the district attorney explained that he could not answer that question. He offered to have a detective take the stand if it was important to the jurors making a decision. The juror declined.

At the end of approximately a 20-minute deliberation, the grand jury returned an indictment against Erick and Jose for murder, destroying evidence, and accessory to commit murder. 

In June, Jose pleaded guilty to the charges of destroying evidence and accessory to commit murder. These are both gross misdemeanors, and he was sentenced to 2 years in the Clark County Detention Center, which was the maximum penalty under the law. 

Judge Tierra Jones said “I know from where the family is sitting, suffering a loss that you’ve suffered, two years doesn’t seem like a sufficient punishment for losing your daughter and losing your sister. But from where the court is sitting, my hands are tied. I have to impose a punishment that is allowable under the law, as it stands today. That is the only option that I have. And I understand that you guys feel like the system has failed you. And I understand that nothing that happens here today is going to replace what you lost.”

He served just 8 months and 15 days. 

[John]

The Palacio family held a protest over his sentence, and District Attorney Steve Wolfson said his office charged Rangel  “with all that we were able to charge him with under Nevada law.”

He went on, saying “We were prepared to go to trial on this case, but Mr. Rangel chose to accept responsibility for his role in this tragedy by pleading guilty to both charges against him…This was not the result of a negotiation or plea deal.”

Lesly’s sister Nayelli said – “It hurts that someone can do this to my sister and only get two years. If you knew Lesly, you would know she didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to have her life taken from her.”

Chief Deputy District Attorney John Giordani, who presented the case to the grand jury, said that “The Nevada Legislature needs to do something about this because dumping a young girl's body and treating her like a piece of trash should not be treated as a misdemeanor. And assisting a murderer after he commits such an egregious crime should not be treated as a misdemeanor.”

During the sentencing, for what it’s worth, Jose did apologize to the Palacios and said he was regretful and very sorry.  “I understand their pain, and it hurts me, it hurts my heart, understanding that I failed as a father, that two beautiful families were destroyed. I recognize my mistake. I feel very ashamed that this incident took place, and that I as a father acted the way I did and did not go straight to the authorities when this happened. My love as a father won me over. I was so on the edge I didn’t know what to do. That betrayed me. I did not make the right decision.”

[Shaun]

That feels like the understatement of the year. It’s clear to me that if Jose really wanted to, he could come forward with more information about where his son is. It’s not too late for him to make this right. And four years is too long for this family to wait. 

Lesly’s family held a vigil for her at their home on Thursday, September 10th her family remembered her for being caring and loving. The instructor in her medical training program was there with several of Lesly's classmates. They bought her scrubs which Lesly’s family placed on a table filled with candles and flowers. Her teacher Michelle Crawford said that she had emailed Lesly to schedule her final graduation meeting, but Lesly didn’t come.

Lesly’s funeral was live-streamed on Sunday, September 27, due to the COVID pandemic, The Palacio family released a statement saying 

“We wish everyone could join us for services this weekend for Lesly. Unfortunately, services will be private due to the capacity restrictions with the pandemic.” 

[John]

We all can help the Palacio family with their search for justice because Erick is still out there. Rangel-Ibarra is about 28 years old, 5 feet, 6 inches tall, weighs about 173 pounds, and has brown eyes and black hair. He has a tattoo on his ear of California, a tattoo on his chest of a skull, and a tattoo on his left wrist of a “Dragon Ball Z image.”, and he is likely at large in Mexico.

We will share his wanted photo and photos of him so please be sure to share them. You never know if your share will be the one that leads to his arrest. Anyone with information regarding his whereabouts may contact Las Vegas police at 702-828-3521 or, to remain anonymous, call Crime Stoppers at 702-385-5555.

[Shaun]

Thank you as always for listening & be sure you are following us on social media at Sins and Survivors so you can share those photos and Erick’s wanted poster because

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