Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
August 11, 2010

A small cross has been placed in a field in Section 27 of Liberty township four miles northeast of Mount Ayr, where a body was discovered December 3, 2007.

Thanks to an online database system, authorities have a name for the body discovered by hunters two and a half years ago.

Luis FERNANDEZ is the name of the 20-year-old man killed and left in a Ringgold county field. A known member of the MS 13 gang, described by some as one of the most dangerous gangs in the country, FERNANDEZ had a checkered career in his young life.

In the meantime, 28-year-old Collins STRAIGHT remains jailed under murder charges and a list of additional charges recently filed.

According to Omaha, NE area authorities, FERNANDEZ was a methamphetamine dealer who may have owed a large drug debt.

FERNANDEZ, who was born March 18, 1987, had been deported to Mexico in December 2006 after serving a time in prison for his part in a 2004 Springfield, NE carjacking.

FERNANDEZ apparently sneaked back into the United States and returned to Omaha, where family members last saw him at his birthday party in late March 2007. FERNANDEZ was killed in early July and his body left in a grassy and wooded area until six months later when it was discovered, according to officials.

He had sisters living in Omaha who eventually reported him as a missing person in October 2008, nine months after his body was found.

Sisters told authorities that he would take off on his own for long periods and they thought that maybe he had returned to Mexico.

Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation had checked with Omaha officials early in their investigation, when information they found seemed to indicate that the unidentified body might have been someone from that area.

The match wasn’t made, however, until Jim SHIELDS, an Omaha detective, searched information in a newly created Department of Justice database called NamUs, where the Ringgold county information was detailed and made a possible connection.

SHIELDS had information that tied FERNANDEZ to acquaintances in New Market and SHIELDS guessed that an unidentified body found 40 miles away from New Market in Ringgold county could be a possibility.

DNA evidence was provided by FERNANDEZ'S sisters and was conclusively matched in January of this year, according to authorities.

After the skeletal remains were found in December 2007, information was provided to the public in May 2008 that the body was that of a male in his early 20's, 5'3" to 5'6" tall, Causcasian or Hispanic, with DVS shoes, Tommy Hilfiger jean shorts and a maroon colored hooded sweatshirt. Another distinguishing item was the Lord of the Rings ring found on his finger.

Charged first with the murder in June 2008 was Edward GRAY Jr., 40, of College Springs.

As the investigation continued, charges against GRAY were dropped and first degree murder charges were filed in December 2008 against Collins STRAIGHT, who had been listed as a witness against GRAY in the first trial information.

STRAIGHT'S arrest for a burglary of the home of Lillie RINEHART earlier in 2008 had been cited by law enforcement officers as a break in the case.

According to trial information, law enforcement officials charged that STRAIGHT drove FERNANDEZ to the remote location northwest of Mount Ayr to complete a drug transaction, fatally shot FERNANDEZ and drug his body to the area where it was eventually found.

In action in district court in Mount Ayr recently, the trial information was amended to add four more charges to the first degree charge STRAIGHT already faced.

Transcription and note by Sharon R. Becker, August of 2010

Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, September 30, 2010

Having plead guilty to a string of lesser charges to avoid a murder conviction, Collins STRAIGHT, 29, was sentenced Monday in the case that grew out of the death of Luis FERNANDEZ of Omaha, NE, whose body was found in a field northeast of Mount Ayr in 2007.

STRAIGHT was also sentenced on a burglary charge in a case where coins and knives were stolen from the home of Lillie RINEHART in rural Mount Ayr.

FERNANDEZ'S body was discovered in a field four miles northeast of Mount Ayr in December 2007 but was not identified for many months until a computer system matched up a report of a missing person and the body found in Ringgold county.

According to authorities, FERNANDEZ, an illegal immigrant, was involved in the methamphetamine drug trade.

Judge Sherman PHIPPS carried out an earlier plea agreement in the case of the death of FERNANDEZ, sentencing STRAIGHT to a consecutive series of 54 years in prison in the case where the murder charge was dropped. In addition he was sentenced to a maximum of five years in the burglary case.

PHIPPS imposed the rule of law in the two methamphetamine Class B felony convictions that says that the defendant must serve at minimum one-third of the 25-year sentence, which would be a little over eight years in each case.

This would indicate that STRAIGHT would serve at least eight years on one of the drug convictions before beginning a second sentence of at least eight years.

Then some portion of the sentences on the misdemeanor counts would also have to be served.

In practice this is not always the case, however, as the state parole board does not necessarily follow the statutory guidelines.

2007 Murder Case

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, October of 2010