1. An Introduction

My name is Alex Valdez. I'm a career tech guy focusing on crisis management and recovery, primarily for Fortune 500 companies. My involvement with the Mixtli crew stems from the fact that I grew up absurdly poor. I'm talking about living in a trailer park with no running hot water levels of poverty. Growing up, Mexican food to me was always beans, rice, tortillas, and a cheap protein. I never had a culinary culture to speak of, which is why I was so amazed when I had my first Mixtli experience and learned that Mexican fine dining was actually something I could be proud of. It became critically important to me to spread that message so that others would not be robbed of knowledge of their own culture due to economic hardship.

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To that end, I established a company to help restaurants with their websites, social media presence, and other technical challenges they might face. I might not be of much use in a kitchen, but I'm more than happy to volunteer the skillset I've trained all my life to help chefs and farmers succeed. Though it's technically an LLC, a bulk of my work is performed entirely free of charge so long as it's a good person that I'm working to benefit. The relation here to Mixtli is that they at the time needed a ticketing system that would help them sell tickets for their nightly dinners. No products existed out there to help them that weren't egregiously expensive, so I sank my life savings into developing that software alongside a team of friends.

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Diego Galicia is the co-owner and executive chef of Restaurant Mixtli, a Mexican fine dining concept located in Olmos Park. He's won many accolades at the local and national level for his small 12-person prix fixe dinners. He operates the establishment alongside co-owner Rico Torres.

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Their sous chef, Cassie Ramsey, was my best friend for about a year leading up to the incident, as we had many shared interests and life experiences. Although many assumed we were dating with romantic intent due to the number of brunches we'd enjoy around town or shows that we'd catch down at the Majestic, she was much more like a sister to me. I must admit some naivety in not knowing the extent of the relationship that she shared with Diego. I was under the impression that they had feelings for one another but could not act on them due to Diego's marriage. Many have corrected me on the error of my ways, as this affair was seemingly ubiquitous knowledge among every person I've spoken to about this within the San Antonio culinary industry.