What is known about Raúl Meza, the alleged serial killer of more than 10 victims captured in Austin

The 62-year-old man said at the time of his arrest last Monday that he was ready and prepared to kill again. He was wanted for two murders that occurred last May and in 2019. 40 years ago he was prosecuted for killing a girl, but he was released from prison after 11 years. He is being investigated for the deaths of between eight and 10 people.

Raúl Meza has been considered by the Austin Police, the capital of Texas, as "the worst of the worst." This 62-year-old man was arrested last Monday accused of two deaths. However, it is believed that it could be a serial killer as it is linked to more than a dozen homicides.

"We have between 8 and 10 cases that fit a similar circumstance, but that could grow," Detective Katy Conner, who has followed the case, said at a news conference Wednesday.

Images of the capture file of Raúl Meza, 62, released by the Pflugerville County, Texas police. Credit: Twitter Pflugerville Police.

According to authorities, Meza's life is plagued by violent crime. The first of these dates back 40 years, to 1982, when he confessed to sexually assaulting and murdering a third-grader who was riding her bicycle at an Austin elementary school.

After serving 11 years in prison of a 30-year sentence for this crime, Meza was released. At that time, he assured that he had reformed.

However, when police arrested him last Monday near a bus stop on North Lamar Boulevard, they found him in possession of a backpack containing duct tape, zip ties and a gun.

Another Austin Police Department (APD) detective present at the conference, named Patrick Reed, shared Meza's chilling words at the time of his arrest: "He said he was ready and prepared to kill again and he was looking forward to for doing it."

The two crimes for which Meza was arrested are the murder of an elderly man from Pflugerville, Texas, a city 18 miles north of Austin; and that of an Austin woman whom police say he killed in 2019.

The man's crime involved his 80-year-old roommate, Jesse Fraga, who was murdered on May 20. During the press conference, Austin Police Homicide Unit Sergeant Nathan Sexton said the Travis County Medical Examiner's Office noted that Mr. Fraga had sustained a puncture wound to the neck and severed cervical spine. .

On May 24, the police department received a call that was transferred to APD's homicide division where he confessed to not only killing Fraga, but also 66-year-old Gloria Lofton, who police say he strangled in 2019. .

The rest of the crimes in which the man would be involved were not revealed in the conference on Wednesday. However, it was said that they would date from the 1970s.

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Mark Gillespie, a private investigator and former APD forensic director, was not surprised by Meza's statement. According to him, he has a "killing mind, willing to kill, hurt innocent people."

Gillespie believes that forensic science will be crucial in solving these cases. However, "the effectiveness of forensic science depends on the condition of the physical evidence in the cases," he told CBS News.

If the evidence has not been degraded, compromised, or contaminated, decades of advances in DNA and fingerprinting technology will play a critical role in uncovering the truth. "Basically, they can retrieve that evidence and subject it to very detailed forensic scrutiny and analysis in the hopes of finding something that has been missing for years," Gillespie added.