The Austin Police Department (APD) is asking for the public’s help in identifying a suspected serial killer whose DNA has been linked to the murders of two women in the metropolitan area.
On June 21st at approximately 4 p.m., police were dispatched to a home in the 2600 block of Metcalf Road after a report of what appeared to be a body.
When officers arrived on scene, they found the body of a woman, later identified as 34-year-old Alyssa Rivera, inside an abandoned building.
A brief investigation conducted by homicide detectives and criminal experts led investigators to believe Rivera was murdered in her home by an unknown suspect.
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Austin Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying suspects in the murders of Alyssa Rivera and Alba Jenise Aviles. (Austin Police Department)
On July 3, police released video and images of the suspect in Rivera’s murder, showing what appears to be a Hispanic man walking next to a woman who is much taller than him.
As the investigation continued, investigators discovered a DNA link between Rivera’s case and the unsolved murder of Alba Jenise Aviles, which occurred on April 14, 2018, in the 300 block of Old San Antonio Road in Bastrop County, Texas.
The Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office is investigating the murder of Aviles, who had left Club Caribe on Felter Lane in Austin the night she was killed.
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The Austin Police Department is asking the public for help in identifying the suspect seen on surveillance camera. (Austin Police Department)
Police say the club is just about three miles from where Rivera was killed and that both murders appear to be sexual in nature.
Police said a suspect has not been identified in either case, but DNA testing has shown the suspect in both cases is the same person.
Austin is notorious for having a high number of serial killers.
Last year, Texas police and U.S. marshals announced the arrest of Raul Mesa Jr., 62, for the murders of Jesse Fraga, 80, a former probation officer who had housed Mesa for many years, and Gloria Lofton, 66, whose body was found in her home in 2019.
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Raul Mesa, 63, is suspected of killing at least two people, but police said he has been linked to at least 10 murders in Texas. (Austin Police Department)
Mesa is a convicted child murderer who has been in and out of prison for decades.
On May 20, 2023, the suspect allegedly strangled Fraga with a belt, stabbed him and severed his spine. An investigation was launched, but the suspect reported the incident to police and turned himself in.
Mesa has a lengthy criminal history dating back to 1982, when he sexually assaulted and strangled an 8-year-old girl outside an Austin elementary school.
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In 1982, Raul Mesa raped and murdered 8-year-old Kendra Paige and dumped her body behind Langford Elementary School in southeast Austin, FOX 7 reported. (FOX 7 Austin)
Mesa served 11 years of his 30-year sentence before being released. He violated his parole in 1994, returned to prison, and was released in 2002. He was on parole until 2016.
Police in January executed a search warrant for Mesa’s Google accounts dating from Nov. 1, 2016 to May 29, 2023 in an attempt to find information linking him to a 2018 cold case in Austin and/or linking him to at least two murders in San Antonio.
“Mesa continued to commit sexual assaults after his probation ended in 2016, and we believe the data associated with the Google LLC account contained herein will assist investigators in establishing that Mesa is a suspect in the murders of Gloria Lofton and Jesse Fraga, the shooting he admitted to in San Antonio, as well as other unsolved murders,” the search warrant stated, according to a report by the Austin American-Statesman.
There is speculation that one of Mesa’s victims may be Nicole Coleman, a college student whose naked body with traumatic injuries was found in a wooded area in Austin in 2018.
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Raul Mesa Jr., 62, is believed to be connected to several murders dating back to 1975, according to police and local reports, but police are also investigating other murders in which he may be involved. (Plugerville Police Department)
Her unsolved murder was like a storm cloud hovering over the city for years.
Mesa’s arrest makes him Austin’s first known serial killer since the Servant Girl Murderer, who allegedly killed eight women in 1885 but never caught, according to city officials.
Police had been investigating Mesa in other Austin deaths but told Fox News Digital at the time that they were not connected to a string of drownings at Lady Bird Lake near Rainy Street, where four men were found dead within a span of several weeks.
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Detectives also said at the time that they had found no evidence of a serial killer or crime in the Rainy Street and Lady Bird Lake cases.
Still, independent investigators following the case, concerned residents, Web sleuths and tens of thousands of members of Facebook groups have voiced concern that there may be a killer on the loose in the man’s death on Rainey Street, a bar-lined street about a block from the waterfront.
APD told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the deaths of Rivera and Aviles are not related to the death near Lady Bird Lake.
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Austin Police Homicide and Missing Persons detectives, the Lake Patrol and crime scene experts investigated Lady Bird Lake last year. A body was discovered in the lake on Monday. (FOX 7 Austin)
Police said the homicide unit investigates all deaths in the city for suspicious circumstances and that after an initial investigation, a medical examiner will examine the body for signs of mutilation, followed by toxicology tests, which can take months.
“Through this process, one death that occurred near Lady Bird Lake in December 2022 has been ruled a homicide,” police told Fox News Digital. “In that incident, the victim was shot by two groups of people who were arguing while driving a vehicle. The other deaths in and around Lady Bird Lake are not being considered suspicious as a result of these investigations.”
Police also said there may be other murders linked to the suspect in the murders of Rivera and Aviles, but APD said there are “no open murders that match the modus operandi of the murders of these two women.”
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Investigators continue to search for leads regarding the suspect seen in the video and are asking anyone with information to contact them at 512-974-TIPS.
Anyone wishing to remain anonymous can contact Capital Area Crime Stoppers by visiting austincrimestoppers.org or calling 512-472-8477. Information leading to an arrest may be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.
Fox News Digital’s Chris Eberhart and Michael Lewis contributed to this report.
