"I went to put in a complaint and the killer was with us"

"After the bodies of the reigning Miss Honduras, 19-year-old Maria Jose Alvarado, and her sister Sofia, 23, were discovered early in the day, police announced that the sister's boyfriend had confessed to killing them last week in a fit of jealousy over his girlfriend dancing with another man."

"She was simple, humble, a total innocent smiling and without malice," said Ludin Reyes, a fellow student at the Technical University of Honduras.

At some point during the night of Nov. 13, a heated argument broke out over the sister dancing with another man and Ruiz pulled a gun, firing first at his girlfriend and then at Alvarado as she tried to flee, said the National Police director, Gen. Ramon Sabillon. Alvarado was hit twice in the back.

Claudio Cecilio Munoz, an uncle of the sisters, said Ruiz came to the family's modest house on a dirt road the day after the young women disappeared to invite them to lunch, and returned several days to help with the search. He described Ruiz not as a boyfriend, but as someone who was courting his niece.

"We didn't file a complaint right away because we were waiting for a telephone call asking for ransom," Munoz said. "On Saturday their mother and I went to put in a complaint and the killer was with us."