AUSTIN, Texas — Raul Meza Jr.'s crimes go as far back as adolescence.
On New Year's Eve in 1975, 19-year-old Derly Ramirez was working at a South Congress Avenue convenience store when 15-year-old Meza robbed him.
"Then Raul led me back into the cooler, where he made me kneel down and then he shot me in the back. He thought he killed me, but I didn't die," Ramirez told KVUE. "The trajectory of the bullet was such that it caused the least amount of damage, luckily, because it entered just to the left of the right scapula and exited just above my collarbone. You can see it here."
Ramirez lost a lot of blood but recovered in weeks, while Meza got out of prison in 1980.
For Ramirez, the physical and emotional scars remain given that Meza's name is resurfacing and is tied to other crimes, like the murder of 8-year-old Kendra Page in 1982.
"He had tried to contact me through his lawyer in the past and I refused vehemently because, again, I told the lawyer, 'Whenever you are able to get Kendra's permission, I'll think about it,'" Ramirez said. "It's never really gone, and it won't be. And again, I'm just so sad that this happened. And it brings back all those memories flooding back as to what could have happened, what should have happened and couldn't."
Ramirez admits he never reached out to Page's parents because it would have been sad and painful as a survivor.
Now that Meza has been arrested for the murder of 80-year-old Jesse Fraga in Pflugerville, Ramirez hopes "justice is served" this time around.