On a cool Saturday night in Houston, Ramon Aguilar reported for his shift as usual. It was March 11, 1989, and his job was to keep watch over the Odell Mikel Trucking and Storage Company at 605 N. Wayside. As a security guard and night watchman, Aguilar was a fixture at the company, responsible for the safety of the property through the quiet, overnight hours. The sprawling grounds of a trucking and storage facility, with its rows of vehicles and warehouses, would have been a solitary post, especially on a weekend.
The last time anyone is known to have seen Ramon Aguilar alive was that same evening. Two of his colleagues, who were finishing their own work, saw him in the office before they departed for the night. They left the premises sometime between 9:45 and 10:00 p.m., leaving Aguilar to his solitary duties. What transpired in the hours that followed remains a mystery that has haunted his case for decades.
The silence of the night was broken by a violence that no one has ever been held accountable for.
When employees arrived for work on the morning of Sunday, March 12, they were met with a disturbing scene. Aguilar, a male, was nowhere to be found, and neither was his truck. Near the office where he had been seen just hours before, there were traces of blood on the ground—a clear and ominous sign that something was terribly wrong. An immediate and urgent search of the company grounds began. It wasn't long before their worst fears were confirmed. Somewhere on the property, searchers found Ramon Aguilar's body. He had been fatally wounded.
The Houston Police Department was called to the scene, and an investigation into a capital murder began. The case, filed under Incident #0213494-89, presented immediate challenges. With no apparent witnesses to the attack itself, detectives had to piece together a timeline based on the grim discovery. The absence of Aguilar's truck suggested a possible robbery or that the vehicle was used to move him after the initial assault. The motive, the sequence of events, and the identity of the person or people responsible were all open and pressing questions.
Decades have passed since Ramon Aguilar’s life was taken. The area around N. Wayside Drive has changed, and the Odell Mikel Trucking and Storage Company is no longer there, but the case remains open. The investigation is now in the hands of the Houston Police Department’s Homicide Division Cold Case Squad. These dedicated investigators are tasked with re-examining old evidence, searching for new leads, and applying modern forensic techniques that were unavailable in 1989. They hope that someone, somewhere, holds the key piece of information that could finally bring clarity and justice.
As of August 2019, the case was highlighted by Houston media as one of the city's many unsolved homicides, a reminder that behind every cold case file is a person whose story ended too soon. The Houston Police Department continues to ask for the public's help. Anyone with information about the murder of Ramon Aguilar is urged to contact the HPD Cold Case Squad at 713-308-3618 or to provide an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS.
