 It was October 13th, 2011, when a pair of black bags were found behind an Oklahoma City grocery store, and police were called to the scene to investigate. The bags were discovered by a team that was trying to trap some feral cats, and the smell that was emanating from the bags was indescribable, but detectives pressed on. As they opened each of the containers, investigators quickly realized they'd uncovered a morbid crime scene, something unlike anything they had seen before. Detectives are still working to piece together what exactly happened here, and they've since arrested two men in connection to the crime. But what exactly was inside these bags, and who could have done such a thing? Stick around and find out. Carina Saunders was born on July 17th, 1992. Her parents say that they decided to name her Carina as the name directly translates to Dear Little One, and dear to her family, Carina certainly was. Carina was one of nine siblings, but she always found a way to stand out and become noticed. Her father described her as being very outgoing, and she'd always find a way to fit in no matter where she went. Carina went to school in Mustang, Oklahoma, attending Mustang High School, a relatively small school in a relatively small area, but the Saunders family made the best of it, and Carina seemed more than happy during her teenage years, a stark contrast from many of the other young victims that we cover from time to time. While attending school, Carina became well-known for her singing. According to one report, Carina was always seen wandering around campus singing, and eventually she was given a spot on the High School Honor Choir team. But Carina wasn't just a great singer, she was also quite smart. She'd been a top competitor in the school's math tournaments year after year, and she won the school's spelling bee three years in a row. She'd also won a statewide tournament in accounting, but I'll be honest, I've never heard of any team being interested in accounting before, and certainly not to the extent of entering an accounting tournament, but this just shows the type of person that Carina was. She wasn't just good at accounting either, she truly enjoyed it. Her main goal in life was to become an opera singer, but if that career path didn't pan out, she decided to take up a career in accounting. Her future was looking incredibly bright, and Carina was so far ahead of other teens her age that she was able to graduate high school a year early. But unfortunately, this is where her winning streak would run out. According to Carina's mother, no sooner than Carina left school, her life began to spiral. Her mother says that Carina began to struggle with substance abuse, and she was known to have taken part in various illegal narcotics. As shocking as it may be, her issues grew so severe that she decided to spend her summer vacation going to rehab. So this certainly seems to have been a problem that was brewing for quite some time. Her stay at the rehab facility seems to have worked out great, and her mother recalls that Carina left the program as a new woman. She was excited to get her life back on track, and by all means, seems to have been doing much better. But we have to keep in mind that for most people, addiction is a life-long struggle. It's not something that can just be solved by spending a few weeks in a program. Addiction is a habit that you can certainly kick, but months, years, even decades after getting clean, the lust for another fix can pop when he least expected. But for Carina, as far as her family could tell, she was having no issues coming to terms with her new life as a recovering addict. Carina and her family had begun attending church services again, and Carina would even post about her religion and beliefs on social media from time to time. Social media was the main way that her friends and family would keep in touch with her, as she didn't have a cell phone or a car of her own just yet. But she would always be sure to post updates or send messages to her loved ones on social media. The last time Carina saw her mother was the day that they attended church together, September 18th, 2011. Several days later, on September 28th, Carina would post to social media and ask her friends and followers what they planned for the night, seemingly looking for someone to tag along with. But oddly enough, Carina would never post to social media again after this. Even stranger, her mother was never able to get in touch with her again either, and her family were left in the dark about where she may have gone. It wouldn't take long before Carina's family would realize that she had gone missing. On September 28th, the day of her final social media post, Carina was known to have visited a local Taco Bell with her cousin. The word family says that the two girls were more like sisters than anything else. Her cousin Catherine left Taco Bell a short while later, but Carina didn't go with her. Instead, Carina stayed at the restaurant to meet up with a friend known as Kenny. According to several reports, Kenny was a bit of an interesting character. He wasn't friends with Carina in the traditional sense. Rather, he was helping Carina establish her career as an adult actress. Sources vary regarding what type of work Carina was specifically getting involved with. Some say that she was beginning to start working on the streets, while others report that she was gearing up to begin starring in adult films. We just don't know for sure. But whatever the case was, Kenny was more or less set up to be Carina's manager. And detectives found several pieces of evidence in Kenny's possession, proving these allegations were most likely true. Kenny says that he and Carina hung out for several hours that afternoon, and he later dropped her off outside of an apartment complex close to Oklahoma City. About a week later, an old friend from high school saw Carina hanging out near this apartment complex. The two chatted for a while, and Carina claimed that she'd moved in with the apartment complex's handyman, and that she'd been helping him around the apartments in her spare time. The friend, named Keegan, said that he saw Carina again later that day, and he stopped to chat with her for a while longer. He quickly learned that Carina hadn't eaten in several days, but he didn't press her to find out why. He offered to take her to get some food, and while they were out, he learned that Carina was essentially homeless and had been living out of a small duffel bag. This took place on October 8th, 2011. After the two said their goodbyes that afternoon, Keegan says that he never saw or heard from Carina again. Well, at least not until he saw her face plastered all across the local news. He quickly learned that Carina had gone missing, and police feared the worst after discovering CCTV security footage of Carina getting into a red pickup truck outside of a local casino. Several other women were spotted in a nearby vehicle, each of them pleading for Carina to not get inside, but Carina entered the truck anyway, and after this, she was never seen again. The CCTV security footage from this case doesn't appear to have been made public, but various descriptions of the footage can be found online. According to these reports, there were two cars parked outside the casino that evening. One was a red Ford pickup truck with a brush guard and lights mounted on the top. The other was parked nearby and was simply described as being a dark-colored vehicle. This is the vehicle that multiple women were believed to have been inside of. A large man with sleeve tattoos exited the red pickup truck, and it seems that he instructed Carina to get inside, and she followed his orders. All the while, the women in the nearby car were screaming for Carina to run away, but she didn't. Neither this man nor the women have ever been located for questioning. The following day, Catherine, Carina's cousin, was texting one of Carina's friends named Kyle Savage. Carina and Kyle were known to have been on good terms, but at some point during this conversation with Catherine, things turned sour and he sent a haunting text message that remains unexplained all these years later. He texted Catherine and said, I'm going to bury you next to Carina. When police questioned him about this text later on, he said that the text was sent by mistake. He thought he was talking to one of his male friends, but sent the text to Catherine purely by accident. But this begs the question, why would he have been sending such a threatening text to one of his male friends either? To make things worse, when this text had been sent, no one had seen or heard from Carina for about 24 hours, and his text certainly suggests that something bad had happened to Carina and he knew about it. In the end, police weren't able to find any evidence to place any charges against Kyle, but for Carina's mother, enough was enough. She thought that it had been very odd that Carina had been out of touch for such a long period of time. After these text messages were brought to her attention, she decided it was time to file a missing person report and the hunt for Carina was officially underway. This report was filed on October 10th, 2011. Carina's mother immediately sprang into action and began hanging up missing person flyers all around town. She reached out to all of Carina's closest friends and family members and asked for help, only to learn that no one had heard from Carina in at least a month. Nevertheless, they all worked together to raise awareness for her disappearance on social media and through hanging up hundreds of missing person flyers in the local area. In missing person cases like this, it often takes detectives and families weeks, months, or even years to get answers, but for the Saunders family, they would only need to wait a matter of days before there was a major breakthrough in the case. But unfortunately, it wasn't the breakthrough that anyone would have hoped for. It was October 13th, 2011. A team of animal rescue volunteers have been attempting to trap some feral cats behind a local grocery store known as Homeland Grocery. As they were setting up the traps for the animals, they encountered a pungent odor that filled the air. As they traced the source of the smell, they came across two black duffel bags, one small and one large. The closer they got to the bags, the stronger the smell became. It was at this point that they decided to abandon their initial mission and they called in the help of the local police. When police arrived at the scene, they immediately knew that something was wrong. One officer recalled smelling the distinct odor of decomposition and she knew that they'd encountered a terrible crime scene. As officers opened up the bags, they found that each duffel bag had been stuffed with smaller plastic bags, each of which contained a portion of a young woman. I'm not going to go into any further detail about the state of this discovery, but it was more than obvious that a serious crime had taken place here. Officers said that a lack of any other evidence at the scene suggested that this wasn't the scene of the actual crime, but rather a dump site. Police say that the bags had likely been here for three or four days, but at the time of the discovery, they had no idea who the remains could have belonged to. They wouldn't find answers to this question until four days later, on Monday, October 17th. Early that morning, Karina's parents received a phone call from the police, asking them to call out of work and come to the police station immediately. When they arrived, it became painfully obvious that they weren't called down for good news regarding their search for Karina. Instead, it was far worse than any parent could ever prepare themselves for. Karina's parents would soon learn the pain of loss that none of us could ever imagine. Losing a child or a loved one is beyond comprehension, but losing a child like this, these are wounds that will never heal. As mentioned a moment ago, the last known sighting of Karina was at the aforementioned New Castle Casino, which meant that Karina was last seen alive on the evening of October 8th, five days before the duffel bags were discovered. After confirming this info, police turned their attention towards a nearby home located at 3,500 South Harvey Street. This home is known by locals as being a home for less than desirable people. While innocent homeless people would use the home for shelter from time to time, the real reason why locals were bothered by the home is because it was also used by individuals who would seek shelter in the home to sell illegal goods or to use them. Police had been called dozens of times over the years, and there were various reports of women selling themselves for money near the home and even reports of a man claiming his life inside of the home and another man trying to set the home on fire. This place was seriously sketchy and it was one of the first places police searched for clues, given the somewhat close proximity to the scene of the crime. While investigators didn't find any additional evidence here, it did help prompt the police to issue an order for the building to be condemned and torn down, certainly easing the minds of all the neighbors who live nearby. It was around this time that the autopsy report came back from the coroner's office. Now, like I mentioned a moment ago, I'm not going to go into all the details about the state of Carina's remains. It's far too graphic for even seasoned true crime viewers to hear, but that information is out there if you want to read it for yourself. All I'll tell you is that there were various pieces of evidence and remains that were tested and each revelation was worse than the last. Carina had been subjected to a night unlike anything else. She had been restrained. She'd been dosed with prescription painkillers and the criminals went to great lengths to try to conceal her identity before dumping the evidence. The coroner says that it's impossible to determine whether or not Carina had been alive when the criminals began, while taking steps to fit Carina into the duffel bags. But one witness claimed to have seen video footage of the ordeal and this witness confirmed that Carina was in fact alive at the time that this occurred. This witness was known as Tia and she claims she uncovered the video while looking through a friend's cell phone. Her friend, Louis Ruiz had left his phone out while he went to the bathroom one day while he was visiting with Tia. She began innocently scrolling through his photos and videos when she came across the footage of Carina by mistake. Another woman later came forward and claims to have witnessed the crimes against Carina firsthand, becoming so terrified that she jumped out of a window and ran for her life and thankfully did so successfully. Now all this may sound like it's coming completely out of left field but there's much more to Louis than meets the eye. According to Tia and several investigators who dug deeper into Louis's past, Louis reportedly had been involved in various crimes including dealing, human trafficking and he may have even had links to certain homicide cases. But get this, here's the craziest detail of all, Louis also used to be an elementary school teacher. It's rumored that he became involved with illegal trafficking and quit his job as a teacher soon after as he didn't need the money anymore. It was July of 2012 when police finally began to bring together enough evidence to implicate Louis Ruiz but he wasn't the only man believed to have been involved in the crime. As they would soon learn, two prison inmates had come forward and revealed that they had shared a cell with another man named Jimmy Massey. Jimmy had allegedly confessed to the crime while behind bars. Not only this, but Jimmy had direct ties to Louis and they both allegedly ran a trafficking ring together. Hopefully now all this is starting to make sense as the facts and allegations are all adding up but this still begs one bigger question. What was the motive? After all, Karina had no known ties to either of these men. Well, it may be as simple as Karina being in the wrong place at the wrong time. So as you can imagine, being a victim of human trafficking isn't a great lifestyle. These young men and women are forced against their will every day of their lives and most of these victims will attempt to escape at some point or another. But for Louis and Jimmy, they were tired of having to deal with all of their victims trying to flee. To help put an end to this, it's been suggested that Karina was captured and her life was taken in the most awful way in order to show all the trafficking victims what would happen to them if they ever tried to escape again. According to these rumors, Karina had no involvement with either of these men or any of these girls. She just happened to be outside the wrong casino at the wrong time. But here's where things really take a dramatic turn. In 2013, all charges against both Louis and Jimmy were dropped due to a lack of evidence. While police had multiple compelling witness testimonies regarding both Louis and Jimmy, they weren't able to find any evidence that tied either of them to the scene of the crime nor did they have any evidence to confirm the witness testimony. Witness statements can only take an investigation so far and in this case, they just couldn't take things far enough to secure a conviction. To make matters worse, the video that Tia allegedly found on Louis's phone has never been located and it's entirely possible that she made the whole thing up or that Louis deleted the video before police could find it. In the end, both men were cleared and Louis was even granted $50,000 in compensation after his attorney learned of at least 10 civil rights violations that were carried out against him while he was in custody. Ever since then, the cases more or less reached a standstill. The FBI has been called in to help with the investigation and various investigative agencies in Oklahoma are still helping out. But the evidence in this case is minimal at best. Whoever carried out this crime did an excellent job of covering their tracks and so far, police have virtually no leads. While many people still believe that Louis and Jimmy were involved, this doesn't matter if police aren't able to prove it. In the end, it's entirely possible and highly probable that Karina did nothing wrong in the lead up to her disappearance. Her friends and family say that she had no known ties to any of the suspects and investigators have been forced to agree. The hunt for the criminals responsible for Karina's demise is still ongoing, but things are not looking great for the investigation. Police are currently offering a $10,000 reward for information and another $50,000 was offered by an anonymous donor in 2018. If you have any info regarding this case, anything at all, you're asked to contact the OSBI at 1-800-522-8017. You can also email tips to tipsatosbi.ok.gov. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of True Crime Stories. If you wanna see more true crime documentaries like this, be sure to hit that like button and subscribe. If you'd like to help support the channel, the best way you can do that is simply by leaving a comment below, any comment at all. It helps up the channel a lot more than you may realize. If you wanna help out financially, you can do that by clicking the blue join button below or by picking up a true crime stories mug from tieknots.com. But with that, my name is Ty Knots and I'll catch you guys in the next video.