The Christmas Murders

Murder by nature

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Christmas is a time for families and friends to gather around with holiday cheer. Most families have holiday parties with food, drinks, games, and music, while others have a sit-down dinner with a few selected friends. Christmas morning is filled with laughs and screams as children run to the tree to see what Santa brought them, and wrapping paper is laid across the room as they rip through all their gifts. It’s a time for family and happiness. But as you know, listening to this podcast, Christmas can also be filled with murder. As we dive into this case, I am not going to dive into the Reddit forms that make assumptions about the family or the motive for why this happened. We will focus on the facts and the facts alone.

Christmas, 2008. Joseph and Alice's Ortegas were celebrating Christmas as they did every year. Friends and family were coming over for the annual Christmas eve party. The house would soon be filled with their 5 grown children, grandchildren, and friends. The family played a game of poker that Christmas Eve and the party was in full swing. But the doorbell rang in the middle of their holiday celebration, and what unfolded next was incredibly gruesome. Shortly after the doorbell sounded, police received 911 calls from the Ortega’s neighbor. The caller cried, “Come immediately! They’re burning down someone’s house.”

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