On the morning of February 24, 1995, Jose Sanchez hosted a gathering at his apartment at 231 South Spring Avenue in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, that continued through the day and into the evening as guests drank heavily. Among the guests was a man later referred to in court records only as "John Doe." That afternoon, following a dispute with another guest over a guitar, an altercation broke out involving Jose Angel Garza; witnesses reported that Garza turned on the apartment's gas stove burners and held a lighter to a fuse box before being stopped by others present. Garza left the party around 9:30 p.m. and, about ninety minutes later, purchased forty-five cents of gasoline at a nearby convenience store. Within roughly twenty minutes, the apartment was on fire. All other occupants escaped; the unidentified man, who had passed out on a couch after drinking, did not, and died of smoke inhalation. He was found carrying a Social Security card in the name Roberto Plateado Ramirez, later determined to be fraudulent, along with jewelry, a Western-style belt buckle, and cowboy boots. He is described as a Hispanic male, estimated 30 to 50 years old, with a "Fu Manchu"-style mustache, several tattoos including imagery associated with Sinaloa, Mexico, and an older gunshot-wound scar to the neck.
Sioux Falls Police and Minnehaha County authorities investigated the fire as an arson-homicide. Garza was charged with murder and arson; a jury convicted him of first-degree murder and first-degree arson, and the South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed the convictions in 1997. The identity of the man who died in the fire has never been confirmed. He is known to have used more than a dozen aliases, none of them verified, and acquaintances at the time described him as a migrant field laborer who had lived in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area for about five years before arriving in Sioux Falls roughly three weeks before his death. His case is listed with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs). As of December 2024, the Sioux Falls Police Department reported no new developments in the case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Sioux Falls Police Department.
