Esther “Lizette” Galaz and Karen Grajeda

0:28We always recommend Shopify. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder. This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice.

1:05Today I'm discussing the cases of Esther Lysette Galaz and Karen Grahada. We're going to step back to the mid-1990s in Tucson, Arizona to examine two cases that have haunted the city's south side for three decades. In December 1994, six-year-old Lysette went missing from her apartment complex. About 13 months later, 7-year-old Karen Grahada went missing from her apartment complex just 8 miles away. On the surface, these may seem like isolated incidents, but as local investigators and the FBI began to look deeper, they discovered a disturbing pattern, and they were soon linked to three additional abductions of young girls in the same area between 1993 and 1994.

1:53These are the cases of Esther Lizette Galaz and Karen Grahada. It's about 6 p.m. on Monday, December 19, 1994 in Tucson, Arizona, and 6-year-old Esther Galaz, affectionately known as Lizette, is playing with friends at her apartment complex, the Rea Verde Apartments. She and her family had recently moved to the area, And while she was enrolled in school as a first-grade student, they were out for the holiday break. Around dusk, Lysette returned to her second-story apartment. But of course, she's six, so not long after, she asked her mom if she could go back outside and play with her friends. Her mom said no and asked her to stay in the apartment while she ran to a nearby store.

2:36She puts her 11-year-old son Noah in charge of watching Lysette and her younger sister while she does so. Her mom leaves, and a few minutes after, Lysette leaves too. She tells her brother she wants her mom. And again, Noah's 11, and watching an even younger sister at the time, so Lisette walks out the door. When their mother gets home about five minutes later and realizes what happened, she begins looking all around the apartment complex for Lisette. She assumes she's likely playing with one of her friends, or is somewhere between the apartment complex and the nearby store. She doesn't immediately fear the worst, but after about an hour she realizes that something is very very wrong and she calls the Tucson Police Department to report Lysette missing.

3:20The first officers arrive at the scene with a canine unit ready to assist in searching for Lysette but they don't find her anywhere so they call in other officers to go door to door to ask if anyone saw anything and they do get some very disturbing reports. It seems that a few people, mostly kids, saw Lysette leaving to go to the store but she's stopped when a man calls her name and compelled Lysette to get in his vehicle. Of course, that is absolutely terrifying. The worst-case scenario is that Lysette has been abducted, and the best-case scenario is that she's out there somewhere alone in about 40-degree weather.

3:59The searches for her continue that night and into the next morning, but they don't find anything to point them to her or where she may have gone. Now, Lysette was named after her mother, Esther Galas. So for clarity purposes, just know when I say Lisette, I mean the child, and when I say Esther, I mean her mom. So 30-year-old Esther and her live-in boyfriend, 28-year-old Martin Lopez, are interviewed by the local paper, the Tucson Citizen, on December 20th. They both say they haven't slept all night and plead for her safe return. Esther also reiterates that Lisette has never run away, and was a reliable kid in general.

4:36This just wasn't like her. The article goes on to explain that there was a command post set up by police at the rental offices of the apartment complex. They have about 30 officers, helicopters, and dogs out looking for Lisette. Her story is also featured on the local news. And again, they just don't find anything. In fact, that's exactly what a police spokesperson told the Tucson citizen, that they have nothing at this point. I think now is a good time to talk about this area, because it's important to all the cases I'm going to tell you about today. Around this time, Tucson had a population of about 635 ,000 people, and the city's really known for being the home of the University of Arizona, one of the largest universities in the state, so there's a lot of students in the city.

5:24Tucson's also about 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, so there are a lot of people traveling through Tucson to and from Mexico. And unfortunately, this area wasn't absent of crime. Between 1993 and 1994, three girls between the ages of 7 and 8 were abducted in separate instances. Two were sexually abused and all three were set free, but the perpetrator was still at large. There was such a strong belief that these cases were connected that the media coined this man as the South Side Molester due to all the girls being from the south side of Tucson, just like Lisette. Now, I'll be talking about all three of these cases a lot in this episode.

6:06For obvious reasons, these girls are largely unnamed in the media, so I'll be protecting their privacy also. Just know that when I discuss these three cases from 1993 and 1994, these are the cases I'm referring to. But back to the timeline. At this point, the police and her family fear that Lisette may have been taken by this person, though police officials are hesitant to confirm that the cases are related. We know how these things go. So this is a city with a decent-sized population, with quite a bit of people traveling through the area, and some pretty recent abductions of children her age.

6:43It's a terrifying situation, and these searches are turning up nothing the day after she went missing. They even hold a press conference urging citizens to contact police if they've seen anything. And again, there's just nothing. That is, until about 4.30 p.m., when a man walking his two dogs reports finding Lysette's body in a ditch, about half a mile from where she went missing. Her body was hidden under a mattress, and she'd been beaten and sexually abused. The area where she was found was one the officers planned to search that same day. Of course, it's just the worst-case scenario in a situation like this.

7:26Lysette's mother was with her priest that night, but her aunt Celia Alvarez spoke to the media, advocating for a reward to help find her niece's killer. She explained that they didn't have any money to create the reward fund themselves. Over the next few days and weeks, both Lisette's mother and her mother's boyfriend appealed to the media for help in finding her killer. They were also extensively interviewed by police and ruled out. And at this point, we do have some further clarification on the reports of Lisette being seen getting into a man's vehicle on the day she went missing. And it's really only more terrifying.

8:04While we do now have a better description of the vehicle, a blue or gray pickup truck, the Tucson PD is now getting reports that the man forced Lisette into the vehicle. Her family appeared at a press conference on Thursday, December 22nd to plead for the man who killed her to come forward. Esther's boyfriend, Martin Lopez, was visibly upset, and at times sobbing uncontrollably. He said, quote, For God's sake, man, come out. I'm asking for help finding the man who took my baby, took my baby and is going to take another one. He's a crazy bastard. We can't have this guy running around Tucson. End quote.

8:44It is so hard to read that without getting emotional. But when I did read that quote for the first time, I also got chills because nearly a year to the day, less than eight miles away, another child in the first grade went missing.

9:03It's Thursday, January 11th, 1996, and 7-year-old Karen Grajada just got home from Elvira Elementary, where she was a student in the first grade. She spends the afternoon cleaning her room, playing Nintendo, roller skating, and riding her bike. Peak 1996 behavior. I mean, I was literally the same age as Karen. We actually share a birthday, October 15, 1988. So I can envision this exact afternoon. Karen lives with her mother, Rosalba Lizoya, and her 5-year-old sister Alejandra at the Saguaro Crest apartment complex in South Tucson, just about 8 miles from where 6-year-old Lisette Galaz lived before she was killed about a year prior.

9:46After Lisette was killed, parents had their kids on lockdown, terrified to let them play outside as they once did. While Lisette's case was still unsolved, the community was beginning to heal and let their kids have a little more freedom, like to play in the courtyard of the complex. Karen and her sister would often play there with a group of about 10 kids who also lived in the complex. Like I said, they were out roller skating, riding their bikes, peak 90s kids outdoor play, but still within the confines of the complex and specifically that courtyard. At about 6 p.m., Karen runs back to her apartment to drop off her skates and bike.

10:23At this point, her mom's finishing up dinner, so she tells her that it's time for her and her sister to come inside for the night. But Karen pleads with her mom to play for just a little bit longer, and her mom agrees. At about 6.30 p.m., it's time for that dreaded call from her mom that it's time to come in for dinner, that she and her sister need to come back inside. But only Alejandra returns home. Her mom tells her to go right back outside and go get her sister. But when Alejandra comes back, she tells her mom that she must have lost track of Karen, because she has no idea where she is. So of course, Rosalba goes outside to look for Karen.

11:00She also asks the other kids in the courtyard if they've seen her, but no one has. They didn't see her walk away, they didn't see a struggle, they didn't hear a scream. They also didn't see any strangers, and none of the other kids are unaccounted for. Karen just isn't there. So she calls the Tucson Police Department, who arrive on scene that night and begin searching for Karen. They look in the surrounding area and go door-to-door asking about Karen, but they come up with nothing. The next morning, they pull out all the stops. You can tell in the reporting on this case that the local police were deeply disturbed by the fact that they had three children around this age abducted and sexually abused by a predator before being let go, and the murder of Lisette Galaz, all unsolved since 1993.

11:52Now at the beginning of 1996, they have the disappearance of a 7-year-old in the same area. So again, they were putting in every effort and resource they could from the start. They immediately set up camp in the dirt lot to the east of the apartment complex, and set up a dedicated 24-7 hotline for tips. They have dozens of volunteers and officers out there. 15 detectives, 20 uniformed officers, and 25 volunteers went door to door. They checked in abandoned cars and dumpsters, ditches, and alleyways. They heard people on foot in patrol cars, motorcycles, horses, ATVs, police helicopters with infrared technology.

12:33And some of Lisette's family helped in the search too, in tears and in shock that it might have happened again in their community. But again, there's no sign of Karen anywhere Lieutenant Detective Richard Middleton with the Tucson PD leads the charge to find Karen And on January 13th, police met with and cleared Karen's father Andres He was living in Mexico working as a fisherman and sending money back home to his family in the U.S. He didn't know anything about what may have happened to Karen Her whole family is quickly ruled out At this point, Middleton says anything could have happened, and they can't rule out foul play, retaliation, mistaken identity, an accident, or her wandering away Basically, they can't rule out anything because they don't have anything Among all the public outrage, Middleton also denies that there could be a serial sexual predator of children on the loose Though he does say they're looking into other older cases for any connection to Karen's disappearance Searches for Karen continue into the weekend and intensify.

13:42By Saturday, there are volunteers and officers from nine different law enforcement agencies to help in the search. The FBI has also stepped in to help develop a psychological profile of Karen's potential abductor. But by Monday, January 15th, the searches are reduced down to a special 10-member team of investigators from homicide, child abuse, and child sexual assault details. They crawl through drainage pipes and underpass tubing. They're looking under tarps and slabs of wood, and through three-foot-high wild grass. The nearby reservations even open their land to investigators to look for Karen.

14:17And here, they actually find what seems to be a rather promising lead. They find a set of children's footprints, which appear to be a match to Karen's guest brand shoes. These prints are next to a set of adult footprints, and span from the interstate to the San Xavier mission before they just disappear. But when they take a closer look, it seems that the set of smaller prints are about a half inch too big to be Karen's. Now, I really wish we had more information about this, but that's really all we know. They match the exact shoes Karen was wearing when she went missing, but the size appears to be slightly off, so the police deem this lead to be void.

14:59Luckily, this isn't their only promising lead, even though the next one is a little scary They also find spots of blood These are found on a walkway outside of a house a few blocks from the apartment complex So that evidence is collected and sent off for testing They also find a newly dug shallow grave But upon excavation, they discover a dog inside And this is the tip that I think sticks with everyone in this case two witnesses reported seeing Karen leaving a supermarket on Valencia Road near her apartment complex on the day she went missing. They say she was looking at cassette tapes inside the store, but when they saw her leaving, she was crying.

15:42Unfortunately, this sighting was never confirmed, and they didn't report seeing Karen with anyone else. So this lead really just sits. By the end of the day, over 2 ,500 man-hours have been put into searching for Karen, and they've investigated and cleared over 550 leads. At this point, the search for Karen is considered one of the largest in the history of the department, but they have exactly zero suspects, just like in the case of 6-year-old Lisette. About a week into the investigation, they do get another tip, though. Someone reported seeing a white compact car in the area of the apartment complex.

16:22Unfortunately, they didn't give a lot of information, though. It was so little information, in fact, that the police pleaded with the caller to call again. They were really looking for any scrap of information at this point, at least some type of description of the driver. But that doesn't seem to have happened. However, what we do know is that this matches up with a car used in another case, this time an attempted abduction of an 11-year-old girl about three weeks after Karen went missing. A man in a white compact car approached the girl, telling her that her mom had asked him to drive her to school.

16:58Again, it feels like everything I'm talking about in these cases are just the stuff made of nightmares. But luckily, the girl runs away and is ultimately safe. Now, that man was described as white with medium-length hair and was wearing a black and white checkered shirt. But again, this lead just sits with no definitive connection to Karen's case. In fact, unfortunately, there are quite a few attempted abductions in the area of girls around her age that are never connected to the case. By the end of the month, Karen's case is featured on America's Most Wanted, a CBS morning show, and a billboard donated by White Co.

17:34Outdoor Advertising. They've also assigned the FBI's child serial killer unit to work her case. It really does seem clear that they think there may be a connection between these cases in the area, but law enforcement still isn't telling the public that. I say this with such certainty because in May 1996, just a few months after Karen went missing, police release a sketch of a possible suspect. And this sketch is based off of the statements given by the three young girls who were previously kidnapped, assaulted, and released by their captors, again in 1993 and 1994. In the articles I could find about the sketch, it seems that it was largely made possible by that 7-year-old girl who was abducted on July 31, 1993.

18:20While police noted that it took years for this to happen due to the trauma the girl endured, after Karen went missing, she was compelled to help. The sketch depicted a Hispanic male between the ages of 35 and 40, about 5 foot 8 and 175 pounds, and police say he may be a suspect in all three previous abductions, the murder of Lisette, and Karen's disappearance. So this is really when police officially say that they believe the cases may be linked and tied to this one man. It feels like such a promising lead, but it kind of just sits for a while. And as the months go by with no sign of Karen, there are vigils, a reward fund, more media, and even a mailer with her information sent to 61 million homes, but there's still no Karen.

19:12By the one-year anniversary of her disappearance in January 1997, her mother, Rosalba, explains that she had another child and moved her family out of the apartment complex to another undisclosed location to keep them safe. She adds that she quit her job to be with her children and is now supported by her family in Tucson and in Mexico. She adds that she believes Karen might have actually been taken to Mexico, which again is only about 60 miles away. She told John F. Rowlandson with the Arizona Daily Star, quote, I want to tell the man that had the guts to take her away that he should have the guts to bring her back and explain why he did it, end quote.

19:53Just when it feels like they're running out of leads, just a few days after that one-year anniversary of Karen going missing, there's a major break in the case when a man in California is arrested for the abduction and assault, of just two of the three unnamed girls who helped create the sketch of the man they believe may be responsible for what happened to them, Lisette and Karen. On Thursday, January 16, 1997, 35-year-old Rodolfo Sedeno Morales was arrested in Tracy, California, and charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. According to statements given by Sergeant Eugene Mejia of the Tucson Police Department, In November 1996, he was charged in Tucson in connection with two of the three child molestation cases from 1993 and 1994, after DNA was collected from him.

20:48But then he fled the state. The sergeant also confirmed that Morales was now considered an investigative lead in the cases of Lisette and Karen. Morales was officially charged with sexual conduct with a minor under the age of 14 and dangerous crimes against children. a 7-year-old in 1993 and an 8-year-old in 1994. It appears that they didn't have enough evidence to charge him with anything related to that third case in 1994. So Morales is extradited back to Tucson, Arizona, and it does seem that the cases could be connected. Police say in all of these cases, the three girls, Lisette and Karen, they all lived on Tucson's south side, they were all Hispanic, and all were between the ages of 6 and 8 years old.

21:36The stories are also similar, so let's go through them. On July 31st, 1993, a 7-year-old girl was playing at her apartment complex when a man offered her a ride, and to pay her for helping deliver a message. He then drove her to the desert near the complex, sexually assaulted her, and released her a block from her home. She told police he was driving a light powder blue squared off with a gray interior roof, upholstered blue interior, and bucket seats. The girl thought it could be a Volkswagen Rabbit or Ford Fiesta, but with four doors. Then about a year later, on January 16, 1994, an eight-year-old girl was approached by a man on the street who offered to buy her candy.

22:21She rode her bike across the road to a market, and the man forced her into his vehicle. Then he drove a short distance into the nearby desert. The girl wouldn't stop crying as he tried to sexually assault her, so he hit her in the face, told her to get out of the car, and let her walk away. Her description of his vehicle was nearly identical to the way that the first girl had described it. The third known incident was on May 16, 1994, so a few months after the second incident. This time, a man approached a 7-year-old girl about a block from her home. He offered her a ride home, but instead he drove to a nearby patch of desert where he sexually assaulted her and let her go.

23:03This girl gave more limited details about the car. She said it was small and blue with a blue interior and broken taillights. This is the case Morales was not charged with due to lack of DNA evidence. By April 1998, the media consistently lists Morales as a suspect in Lizette and Karen's cases, and evidence was found to link him to even more cases. By the time all this goes to trial, he's facing two counts of molestation, kidnapping, public sexual indecency, sexual conduct, and second-degree sexual abuse with an 8-year-old, two counts of molestation and kidnapping in connection to a nine-year-old, more similar charges in the cases of two other nine-year-olds, and in the case of a five-year-old.

23:52I mean, this guy is obviously just a monster. In the end, he was convicted of 13 felonies in connection with five children. Morales was sentenced to 248 years in prison, where he still sits to this day. Karen Grahada's mother was present for the trial And when asked for comment about charging Morales in the cases of Lysette and Karen Deputy Pima County Attorney Catherine Mayer said she is examining that route But she was not willing to speculate further on possible charges Which never came So where do these cases stand today? Let's start with Esther Lysette Galaz Well, because charges never came against Morales, some have speculated that perhaps the vehicle Lysette was reportedly seen getting into was a family member's car, despite the family being ruled out.

24:50And this is something Lysette's brother Anthony has spoken on. He was 12 when she went missing. He said he thinks it's unlikely because of how new they were to the area, and he said at that time they didn't have a lot of family around, and most of them didn't know where they lived anyway. Unfortunately, most reporting on Lizette's case stopped after that 1998 trial, and only picked back up around the 30-year anniversary in some shorter articles. In 2023, two detectives from the Tucson PD said that they were working on some forensic evidence that may tie her to a new suspect, but as of this recording, no results have been published.

25:28In December 2024, Lizette's brother Anthony was interviewed about his sister's case by local Tucson KGUN9 News. He was asked what he would say to Lysette if he could, and he said he'd just want to see her face again, and hug her, that that would be enough for him. Now let's talk about Karen Grajeda. Well, I wish I had more for you here too, but I really don't. There were a few articles up until about the year 2000, discussing how her mother and Lysette's mother met through a group that supports families impacted by violent crime, and how they were still trying to raise awareness for their daughters through efforts like getting their photos and information on water bottles distributed throughout the country.

26:12But in some of that reporting, it says that there were no witnesses in Karen's case, so it's hard to say if that lead from the two witnesses seeing her crying at a nearby store was eliminated or not. Which I think could be pretty crucial to connecting her case to Morales, Karen's mom said that she was the type of kid who would strike up a conversation with anyone, including strangers. So I have to wonder if she got into a car with Morales and something happened. I can say that Karen's mom said that she believes Morales is likely the person who took her daughter, but unfortunately we have a lot of questions in her case.

26:49That white compact car has never been identified as far as I could find. It's certainly never been linked to her case. We also don't have the results of that FBI profile on the possible perpetrator, or the results of testing that blood found near where she went missing, so those are questions that still remain. However, this year does mark 30 years since she went missing, and that has sparked a small amount of media coverage and a new age progression from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of what she might look like today at 37 They also featured her story on their blog, where Karen's father and sister were interviewed.

27:28Her father Andres said, You remember your children as the best humans. She was only seven years old. She was just an innocent child. That's the memory I have of her. An innocent child who was always smiling. As her father, that's the image I hold on to. end quote. And her sister Alejandra, who was playing with her that day, said, quote, I still hang our Christmas picture every year. My daughter is named after you. If you're out there, if you're alive, we're here. Your whole family loves you. And if you can come home, please do. We'll always be waiting for you, end quote.

28:14Which brings me right to our call to action Please share these cases I can't in good faith tell you that they're connected But it certainly feels like we have good reason to believe that they may be More importantly, these are two children with families speaking out And asking for our help over 30 years later That's something no family should have to live with