Jennifer Delane Upton, 41, of Lubbock was booked into the Lubbock County Detention Center Friday afternoon for murder and a 2013 arrest warrant for issuance of a bad check.
Upton and Jesse Ramos, 44, of Lubbock have both been charged for the beating death of Jesus Arce, 71, in the 2100 block of East 47th on July 17, 2015. Ramos has been jailed since September.
But Arce did not die immediately after he was robbed and attacked, according to court records. Two days after the attack, Arce succumbed to renal failure due to Rhabdomyolysis. In other words, he was beaten so badly that his kidneys failed.
He was discovered still alive by his housekeeper who called police.
Two men were arrested for using Arce’s stolen truck in the days after he was robbed and assaulted.
One of those men talked to police and said, “He heard Jesse Ramos, Jennifer Upton and [another woman] tied Arce up and performed ‘Japanese Water Torture’ on him.”
In the arrest warrant, a police officer described Japanese water torture as similar to waterboarding; a towel was placed over Acrce’s face and then water was poured over the towel while Arce was tied down.
According to the warrant, this same witness said Ramos believed Arce was drugging Upton. The allegation that Upton was drugged by Arce was neither confirmed nor denied in the court records.
Before he died, Arce told police he had been tied down, his face was covered, and he was attacked by a man and two women.
The other woman was not listed in jail accords as of Friday afternoon. A check of her name revealed previous arrests for theft, drug possession and endangering a child, but not murder.
A bloody pillow, cut up socks, and cups were located in Arce’s home. Police believed those items helped to confirm Arce’s story.
As of Friday, bond had not been set for Upton although prosecutors were requesting the bond be set at $500,000. Ramos was held on bonds totaling more than half-a-million dollars.
