Remains of suspected serial killer Fernando Cota booted from US military cemetery

The remains of a suspected serial killer have finally been booted from a US military cemetery thanks to a new law that closed a loophole allowing them to stay there for decades.

Fernando Cota’s body was removed from the Fort Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas, last week under a federal bill backed by Texas senators, signed into law by President Trump in December — and following a lengthy campaign by his victims’ families, Military.com reported.

Cota was drafted into the Army in the mid-1960s and served in Vietnam before he was first convicted of attacking, bounding and raping a nurse in 1975.

He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and while out on parole in 1984, he died by suicide after being pulled over by the police along a California highway at age 38.

Police found the corpse of 21-year-old Kim Marie Dunham in the back of Cota’s van, a day after she had been reported missing.

Detectives eventuallly linked him to more sexual assaults and identified him as the main suspect in the murders of six young women in San Jose, Calif.

An apparent torture chamber was later discovered inside a small closet at his home.

Police also found false ID cards, a fake police badge, several women’s blouses, six pairs of women’s shoes and room-rental fliers that Cota gave out around the San Jose State University Campus to try and lure students to live in his apartment.

He most likely murdered his victims by strangulation, stabbing or beating, according to authorities.

Investigators believe he took his own life to avoid a lifetime in prison or face the death penalty.

Cota was buried at FortHouston despite his criminal record and widespread outcry because of a legal technicality.

The new federal law 38 US Code § 2411 prohibits the military internment or memorialization of veterans who committed heinous crimes.

But the law wasn’t adopted until shortly after Cota died in 1984.

The new law, introduced by US Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and co-sponsored by fellow Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, gave Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins the directive to remove Cota’s remains.

“Because of the law I authored, the remains of Fernando V. Cota, a convicted rapist and alleged serial murderer, have been disinterred from Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio,” Cornyn said in the press release.

“I appreciate Secretary Collins and the VA for swiftly executing the law to bring closure to the victims’ families and restore honor among our nation’s heroes on the sacred burial grounds of Fort Sam Houston.”

It was not known whether Cota’s remains were given to relatives and might have been reinterred somewhere.