Rosendo Jesus Montoya (Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office), Mary Heinz and the home where she and Laura West were murdered (KSAT screenshots)
A 28-year-old man in Texas will spend the rest of his days behind bars for killing a woman he was “obsessed” with and her roommate last year, fatally shooting them both.
Atascosa County District Court Judge Russell H. Wilson on Monday ordered Rosendo Jesus Montoya to serve a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the slayings of 33-year-old Mary Heinz and her 43-year-old roommate Laura West, authorities announced.
According to the Atascosa County Sheriff’s Office, deputies and firefighters at about 5 a.m. on June 29, 2023, responded to a call about a fire at a home in the 100 block of Peach Street in Leming, Texas. Upon arriving at the scene, first responders were able to get one adult female victim out of the burning residence. The woman, later identified as West, was already deceased from what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the head.
West was the owner of the home and lived with a roommate, identified as Heinz, who was missing from the residence and thereby “sparked a mystery right away.”
Investigators spent the next week conducting interviews, gathering evidence, and collecting as much surveillance footage as possible from the area around West’s home. Six days later, they identified Montoya, who previously worked at McDonald’s with Heinz and became “obsessed” with her, as the main suspect in West’s murder.
“The suspect was working at a fast-food restaurant in Pleasanton,” Sheriff David Soward said following Montoya’s arrest. “Shortly before 9 p.m. Monday, two investigators observed the suspect come out of the restaurant, move his vehicle close to a dumpster, get out of his car, retrieve two black plastic trash bags from his car, and place them in the dumpster as he left work. About 45 minutes later, he was stopped by sheriff’s deputies and interviewed on the side of the road. At the same time, one of my investigators went into the dumpster and retrieved the two black plastic trash bags and found it contained partial human remains.”
After being placed under arrest, Montoya directed investigators to a remote area off a county road where he dumped Heinz’s body and covered it with tall grass. She had also been fatally shot.
County District Attorney Audrey Louis told the Pleasanton Express that Montoya may have dated Heinz very briefly, adding that when she told him it was over, he became infatuated with her.
“He stalked her and waited in her home to end her life,” she told the newspaper. “Mary’s death is a single dating woman’s worst nightmare.”
The DA described to the newspaper how Montoya loaded Heinz’s body into a recently purchased container as part of his plan to kill her. At some point during the heinous act, West came home and Montoya shot her in the head.
“Today’s plea means Montoya can no longer hurt anyone outside prison walls,” Louis continued. “While this does not undo the horrific murders of Mary Heinz and Laura West or the lifetime of pain for their children and families, it spares the family and our community the pain of a trial.”
Sheriff Soward told the Express that Montoya was a “serial killer in the making,” describing him as a “monster.”
In a victim impact statement read in court, Mary Heinz’s mother, Michelle Heinz, unleashed on Montoya, speaking directly to her daughter’s killer.
“You’re an evil, little weasel,” she told him, per the Express. “Also, your family, look what you put them through. Please look at me. This is what Mary should look like if she were here. Shame on you.”
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