Serial squatter sentenced to 20 years after decades of evictions across Texas and Colorado

Heather Ruybal was sentenced to 20 years in a Dallas court after a fraud conviction, closing out roughly 25 years of moving into homes she never intended to pay for. Court records show dozens of evictions across Texas and Colorado.

Jessica Davis, the owner, listed it on Zillow and ran the applicant through Zillow's rental screening, which reviews identity and background. Ruybal applied as "Rayes Ruybal" and cleared it.

The checks for the deposit and first month's rent bounced. Davis started searching names herself and turned up 2018 news coverage of an arrest and felony identity theft conviction tied to serial squatting in Adams County, Colorado. By then Ruybal was already in the house, and Texas eviction law gave her months she didn't have to pay for.

Screening failed in both directions

Tenant screening is sold as a fraud filter. Here it processed a woman with a quarter-century record of exactly this conduct and returned nothing useful, because she'd applied under a name the database had no history for. A homeowner doing manual searches on her own laptop found in an afternoon what the paid product missed.

Meanwhile the same industry routinely rejects renters whose entire file is one eviction filing from years ago, often one that was dismissed or settled. An eviction record follows a tenant through screening for years whether or not a judge ever ruled against them, which we covered in renting with credit under 600.

The landlord lost her house too

Davis couldn't cover the mortgage without the rent coming in, so she lost the property herself. The court ordered $40,000 in restitution, which arrives after the house is already gone.

That outcome tends to get lost in squatter coverage, which usually casts landlords as institutions. Plenty of them are individuals renting out one home, where the mortgage doesn't get paid if the rent doesn't show up. A typical Dallas three-bedroom runs $2,359 a month, so a tenant who stops paying and stretches the eviction process eight months takes roughly $18,900 out of a household budget that was probably counting on all of it.

Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Amber Moore described the operation to Denver7 as a business model. "This is what she did for a living, moved into individuals' homes knowing that she wasn't going to pay rent and then exploited the eviction process in order to stay there for several more months," Moore said.

What it means for renters

Stories like this drive policy, and the policy lands on ordinary tenants. Every high-profile squatter case produces bills to speed up removals and expand landlord powers, and those rules apply to everyone with a lease, including the tenant who's withholding rent over a broken furnace or fighting a filing they'd win.

For anyone renting from an individual owner: expect more scrutiny than a big building would apply, since small landlords who've read coverage like this tend to tighten up. Solid documentation, references, and a clean explanation of anything odd in your file do more than a good score alone. Our guide to what you need to apply for an apartment covers the paperwork.

Moore expects Ruybal to serve at least five years before parole eligibility. Prior convictions raised the sentencing maximum from 10 years to 20.

Sources

• Denver7 Investigates, for the sentencing, the Zillow screening detail, and the Moore interview

• Yahoo News, for the conviction and restitution details

• RentDataNow Dallas rent data, anchored to the Zillow Observed Rent Index, June 2026