nowhere. >> i ran out of agencies to go to. >> reporter: do you ever get discouraged? >> i do. sometimes i do get discouraged. >> reporter: do you ever think, i'm just going to stop it? >> i've never once thought that i need to stop or that i should stop or that i have to stop. it's never -- it's never entered into my mind. >> reporter: she didn't know it, but her relentlessness was making a difference. turns out her barrage of phone calls eventually got the case handed off to the u.s. marshals service. and not just any would become involved but one who came from the same mexican-american neighborhood as she did. >> my father actually had a couple mexican restaurants, real small mexican restaurants in southwest detroit. >> reporter: taking charge of the investigation was deputy aaron garcia, nicknamed ponch, a nod to eric estrada's highway patrol office in the old tv show