SAN ANTONIO - What happened behind door number 704? Seven months ago a mother of three was found dead in an apartment on the Northeast side.
Christina Ramos' death was ruled an overdose, but her parents say they know in their hearts that's not the full story. They turned to a private investigator for answers.
"Christina was, I never saw her mad. Smiling all the time,” Jose Martinez says and still finds it difficult to talk about his daughter.
Nearly seven months after her death he’s still fighting to prove Christina didn't die of an accidental overdose.
On April 1st of this year police were called out to the Connemara Apartments off Thousand Oaks and Jones Maltsberger. Investigators spoke with Christina's husband who was in the apartment when she died. They took pictures, collected evidence and less than 24-hours later SAPD closed the case.
"He [investigator] kept using that word. I was so upset when he used that word, it's just an OD,” Jose remembers a conversation he had with a SAPD investigator. “He said it a lot of times. 'She was a user. It's one of those things.'"
Jose says he knows his daughter wasn't a drug user, despite Christina's autopsy showing she had a huge amount of cocaine in her system when she died. To prove his daughter death wasn't an accident he hired Raul Reyna, a private investigator from the Rio Grande Valley.
“We're not refuting the facts that she had cocaine in her system,” Raul said. “It could be a situation where the amount of the cocaine she ingested or that was given to her was just the amount that she could not handle was just the amount that she could not handle, and it was done purposely to cause her death."
Raul uncovered information that shows a life insurance policy might have been taken out on Christina a year before her death. He also took statements from several family members who say someone who was with Christina that night claimed to have killed her. But because that person is not a suspect in this case we've chosen not to name that person unless that changes.
“In my experience and in my belief, there was foul play. Something did happen that night,” Raul told us.
At our request, the police department granted a meeting between homicide detectives and the family this Monday. After the appointment, the police department told the family they will not be reopening the case.
Jose Martinez blames himself for not being able to better protect his daughter. He’s disappointed the case won't be reinvestigated, but says he is not giving up.
