DENVER – She was 15 years old when a man kidnapped and raped her, then shot her in the head and left her to die near the South Platte River.
9NEWS typically does not identify victims of sexual assault. In this case, the survivor gave 9NEWS explicit permission to show her face and name her.
According to court records, in June 1997, Susie Hernandez was walking home in the area of West Holden Place and Federal Boulevard in Denver. The affidavit says she was forced into a truck at gun point. The suspect drove to the area of East 64th Avenue and York Street near the South Platte River. Court records say the man dragged Hernandez to the river, raped her, physically assaulted her and shot her once, leaving her to die.
"It's the most scariest feeling in the world to hear [a gunshot]. It's a loud ringing in your ear, but not only that, it's the fear that it brings," Hernandez said. "That it's a possibility you're going to die. That's all I kept thinking."
And, as if the attack by itself wasn't brutal enough, what the suspect did at the time, according to court records, can amount to torture.
The affidavit says Hernandez pleaded for her life while the suspect pulled the trigger several times. The gun didn't fire. The man continued to pull the trigger and eventually shot Hernandez in the forehead. Court records say the man pulled the victim into the river and left.
"I plead for my life. I kept saying, 'please don't kill me!' But, he didn't care," she recalled.
"She crawled out of the river and was crawling up the river bank when the suspect returned," the affidavit says.
When he returned, he threw rocks at Hernandez and shot in her direction several times. Court records say the teen survived that, too.
"I remember just laying there holding my head, looking up at the sky, like 'I can't do this.' And then I took a deep breath, and I regained myself," Hernandez said.
Hernandez made her way out of the river, through the thick brush and onto the street before she was picked-up by someone in a car. All the while, she was suffering from a gunshot wound to the head.
"I walked half a mile through the field, with thorns poking at my feet and everything. I pushed and pushed until I got up to that highway," she recalls.
That was 1997. It took 18 years to bring her attacker to justice.
The Denver case went cold for a few years. In 2013, a DPD detective received a CODIS (DNA database) Forensic Match report from the DPD Crime Lab. DNA left from the sex assault matched a convicted offender in Texas, 44-year-old Ray Ojeda. Investigators say in 2011, Ojeda was convicted of a felony marijuana charge in Texas. His DNA was submitted to the CODIS database.
On Tuesday, the Denver District Attorney's Office announced a guilty verdict against Ojeda in the 1997 case. He was found guilty of attempted first-degree murder, second-degree kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault.
Prosecutors say the DNA match not only led to the arrest and conviction of Ojeda, but also exonerated two men who had been identified as possible suspects in this case.
"I don't live with anger in my heart. I'm not angry with him for the things he did. I try not to think about him, his feelings or anything," Hernandez said. "I just basically want to live. I want to survive. I never was going to let him stop me from anything."
Ojeda is scheduled to be sentenced in June and will face up to 144 years in prison.
Court records say Ojeda has criminal history in Texas, Florida and Colorado. A criminal background check in Colorado shows Ojeda had vehicle theft, burglary and assault charges on his record, in addition to the latest attempted murder conviction.
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