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Houston – The alleged ringleader in the nation’s deadliest immigrant-smuggling attempt testified Wednesday that she desperately tried looked for the tractor-trailer full of immigrants after it missed its intended destination.

Karla Patricia Chavez, testifying in the trial of three other people accused of being part of the ring, said that as soon as she learned the trailer had driven past the expected stop near Corpus Christi, Texas, she tried to intercept it.

Nineteen immigrants died in the 2003 smuggling attempt, most of them while locked inside the stifling trailer.

“When I was going, I thought the people were going to die,” Chavez testified.

Her testimony came a day after U.S. District Judge Vanessa Gilmore dismissed many of the counts against defendants Victor Sanchez Rodriguez; his wife, Emma Sapata Rodriguez; and Rosa Sarrata Gonzalez, Sapata Rodriguez’s half sister. Gilmore said there was no evidence they had contact with most of the immigrants inside the trailer.

Closing arguments were set for today.

Even with the dismissed counts, the three still face up to life in prison if convicted on remaining counts.

Chavez blamed another member of the smuggling ring for sending the trailer to Houston.

Chavez’s testimony wrapped up the case by defense attorneys, who have tried to assert that authorities could have prevented the deaths and that other members of the smuggling ring were responsible for placing the immigrants in danger.

The prosecution argued that all three defendants played key roles in harboring and transporting immigrants. The ring transported more than 70 immigrants in the airtight tractor-trailer from south Texas to Houston. Seventeen died in the trailer; two died later of dehydration, overheating and suffocation.