{"id":146768,"date":"2025-08-15T03:25:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T03:25:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/146768\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T03:25:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T03:25:18","slug":"us-senate-votes-to-exhume-alleged-serial-killer-from-san-antonio-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/146768\/","title":{"rendered":"US Senate votes to exhume alleged serial killer from San Antonio cemetery"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill to exhume Fernando Cota, a convicted rapist suspected in the murders of at least six women.<\/p>\n

SAN ANTONIO \u2014 An alleged serial killer could soon be exhumed from a San Antonio cemetery after the U.S. Senate unanimously passed legislation from U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)<\/a> to dig up the remains of Fernando V. Cota, a convicted rapist suspected in the murders of at least six women.<\/p>\n

Cota is buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery, a final resting place meant to honor America\u2019s war heroes.<\/p>\n

\u201cFernando Cota faced multiple sexual assault and rape allegations and was the prime murder suspect for half a dozen women after his transition to civilian life,\u201d Cornyn said in a statement. \u201cWhile current law prohibits such a disreputable person from receiving the high honor of being buried amongst those who valiantly served our nation, my legislation would correct this oversight and ensure Cota\u2019s remains are no longer beside those who lived lives worthy of memorial at Fort Sam Houston.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is co-sponsoring the measure, which now heads to the U.S. House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

Cota, originally from Texas, was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in the Vietnam War. After returning home, he faced multiple sexual assault allegations and in 1975, was convicted of binding and raping a nurse. He served just eight years of a 20-year sentence before being paroled in 1983.<\/p>\n

Within a year, police in California say he was suspected in a string of brutal killings in the San Jose area. In October 1984, officers stopped Cota for erratic driving. He shot himself before he could be arrested. Inside his van, police found a wooden box containing the body of 21-year-old Kim Marie Dunham, who had been reported missing the day before.<\/p>\n

A search of his apartment revealed a closet where investigators believe victims were tortured. Detectives also found fake IDs, a false police badge, women\u2019s clothing and personal effects, along with advertisements Cota allegedly used to lure young women by offering rooms for rent near San Jose State University. Six women were ultimately linked to Cota \u2014 all killed by strangulation, stabbing or blunt force trauma.<\/p>\n


\n \"\"<\/p>\n


\n\u2018She was there, then she wasn\u2019t\u2019 <\/p>\n

One of those women was Teresa Linda Sunder. Her son, Dave McCausland, was just 5-years-old when she was killed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I can really remember is she was there, then she wasn\u2019t there,\u201d McCausland said.<\/p>\n

For more than a decade, he was told his mother died in a car crash.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen my mother died, I was told it was a car accident by my father,\u201d he said. \u201cMy whole life has been focused on that one question: What happened to my mom?\u201d<\/p>\n

McCausland says his mother struggled at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t the best of times living in California,\u201d he said. \u201cMy mother was a drug addict, she was a prostitute struggling through a custody battle with my father.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \"\"<\/p>\n

In his 20s, he learned the truth from an uncle.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody tells me my mother wasn\u2019t murdered. They say it was a car accident. Police say it was this guy. And my uncle says, \u2018Oh no. This goes way deeper than that,\u2019 and he told me about Fernando Cota.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThe discovery that changed everything <\/p>\n

In February, while researching his mother\u2019s case, McCausland learned something infuriating \u2014 her alleged killer was buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was angry. I stared at my screen. I wanted to smash my computer,\u201d he said. \u201cWe cannot allow these predators and monsters buried among heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n \"\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when he launched a petition and proposed \u201cTeresa\u2019s Law,\u201d urging Congress to act.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not only trying to dig Cota out of the ground,\u201d McCausland said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to change history. We\u2019re trying to make sure this never happens again for any reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

He reached out to both the House and Senate Committees on Veterans Affairs, alerting them to the discovery and pushing for legislative change. Along the way, he says, he learned that other veterans with serious criminal records are buried in national cemeteries.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 1, the Senate voted unanimously<\/a> to approve Cornyn\u2019s bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnanimously, everybody in the Senate voted yes to pass it. I couldn\u2019t believe it,\u201d McCausland said. \u201cHow could anybody feel this is okay?\u201d<\/p>\n

McCausland says the fight has consumed his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt 47, I should be living a life. Honestly, I don\u2019t have a life. All I do is this,\u201d he said. \u201cThis whole quest to find the truth wasn\u2019t just for me. It\u2019s for those women as well.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nA podcast rekindles the case \u2014 and family ties <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

For true crime podcaster Esther Ludlow<\/a>, the Cota case came back into focus when a local business invited her to present on a murder that happened in Campbell, California \u2014 a small town outside San Jose.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came across this one and got all the details about how much of it was so local to San Jose and the surrounding area,\u201d Ludlow said.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been podcasting for nine years, covering more than 350 episodes \u2014 each full of twists and turns. But Cota\u2019s case, she says, felt different.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s kind of a ghost. We don\u2019t know hardly anything about him,\u201d Ludlow said. \u201cEven his victims, I had a hard time finding information. I was trying to make these people \u2014 so people will know these are real people that this happened to because it was in and out of the news so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her deep dive included rare details about the killings<\/a>, his methods and the aftermath \u2014 information even McCausland had never uncovered.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just blows me away that that podcast [episode] even exists,” McCausland said. \u201cI was watching it and I go, \u2018Oh my gosh.\u2019 All the memories just flooded back.”<\/p>\n

In a twist worthy of one of Ludlow\u2019s episodes, the story also reconnected McCausland with his long-lost sister, who commented on the episode online.<\/p>\n


\n \"\"<\/p>\n


\nA rare move in U.S. history <\/p>\n

If the House passes Cornyn\u2019s bill, it would mark only the third time Congress has ordered a disinterment from a national cemetery. There is precedent: Andrew Chabrol, executed for murder, and Michael Alan Silka, killed after a spree shooting in Alaska, were both posthumously removed through acts of Congress.<\/p>\n

For McCausland, this is about more than one man\u2019s burial.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not only trying to dig Cota out of the ground. We\u2019re trying to make sure this never happens again,\u201d he said. \u201cMany people have heroes buried in national cemeteries. What if there were more?\u201d<\/p>\n

To view McCausland’s petition, click here<\/a>. To listen to Ludlow’s “Murder in My Hometown: 6 Weeks of Terror in San Jose” podcast episode, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Senate unanimously approved a bill to exhume Fernando Cota, a convicted rapist suspected in the murders…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146769,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[5229,7202,7203,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-146768","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-san-antonio","10":"tag-sanantonio","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115030650628162039","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146768\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}