'Serial killer' case: Pflugerville search connected to another possible victim of Raul Meza Jr.

PFLUGERVILLE, Texas - A search earlier this month by authorities in Pflugerville may be connected to another victim of potential serial killer Raul Meza Jr, according to court paperwork obtained by FOX 7 Austin.

Dozens of searchers, including about 14 FBI agents spent hours combing through the field on foot as well as on ATVs on July 12. They retrieved evidence from the field, bringing it to a mobile command center on site.

The field is located near W Pecan Street and N Heatherwilde Blvd, just a few blocks away from the home of Jesse Fraga, whom Meza is also accused of killing.

A search warrant filed by the Austin Police Department says searchers found a gravesite that contained partially buried clothing and a tarp, but no human remains. APD is now looking to search the area again with K-9 units to determine if that gravesite did contain human remains.

Investigators were led to the field after reviewing body camera footage from March 2022 where Pflugerville police officers responded to a 9-1-1 call about a man who appeared to have been in a fight walking along the sidewalk outside an apartment complex on Old Austin Pflugerville Road.

The officers found the man who was identified as Meza and detained him. Officers noticed he was bleeding on his hands and mouth and asked him about why he was in the area and about his injuries. Meza was "abrasive" with his answers and "offered no logical explanation" for his injuries, says the search warrant.

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One of the officers also noted he had seen Meza walking through a large field just north of the complex several minutes before the 9-1-1 call.

Meza initially told officers he didn't know how he got there and that his truck had been stolen, then that it was perhaps parked at a nearby apartment complex on Social Drive. Officers found his truck on a small road north of the complex.

Meza continued to say he didn't know how the truck got there, but finally told officers he had given a woman a lift towards Hutto, about eight miles away from where the truck was parked.

Officers then searched the open field along the roadway where the truck was and found brass knuckles, a bad, a "smashed-up" smartphone and two cell phone cases.

Upon reviewing the footage, APD suspected the woman Meza had been traveling with had been murdered and her body discarded somewhere in the area. A drone search on July 6 uncovered several locations that could possibly be a burial site.

Who is Raul Meza Jr?

Raul Meza, Jr. was arrested on May 29 and charged with the stabbing death of an elderly man in Pflugerville and the 2019 murder of a woman on Sara Drive in East Austin.

His arrest came more than 40 years after Meza pled guilty to raping and murdering an eight-year-old girl in South Austin. 

According to court documents, Meza called police and confessed to killing Jesse Fraga and Gloria Lofton as well as two others in San Antonio, but police say he could be responsible for as many as a dozen murders.

Fraga was found stabbed to death May 20 at a home on Camp Fire Trail in the Settlers Ridge Neighborhood.

Police say Meza also sexually assaulted and strangled Gloria Lofton in 2018.

APD says they had a DNA match in Gloria Lofton's case in 2020, but he was not charged until he confessed to the crime in 2023.

Her daughters say for years, they never really knew what happened, or who could've been responsible.

"It was mishandled so badly that somebody's life could be saved today," said Christina Fultz, one of Lofton's daughters.

The Austin police chief says he is reviewing how detectives handled her case.