by Deanna Boyd, Star Telegram, June 28, 2011
Seven times, fingerprints found on duct tape that had been wrapped around Sandra Martin's body were submitted into a fingerprint database with hopes of identifying the Fort Worth woman's killer.
Seven times, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or AFIS, yielded no match.
But in 2009, after the latest negative result and more than 22 years after Martin's slaying, then-cold case Detective Jose Hernandez had an idea.
Recalling his first homicide case, Hernandez said investigators were successful in finding a database match only after someone sent the prints directly to the Department of Public Safety headquarters in Austin.
So Hernandez decided to hand-deliver photographs of the prints himself.
"I decided on this case, why not?" Hernandez testified Tuesday. "Just take it to Austin, to the same laboratory, and see if there's any success."
Weeks later, he received word of a match and a name -- Jay Thayer Williams -- a Dallas Realtor now standing trial in a capital murder case in connection with Martin's Sept. 22, 1986, slaying.
Williams, now 66, is accused of fatally shooting Martin, 27, while in the course of attempting to sexually assault the mother of two inside her southwest Fort Worth home. Martin's two children, then ages 2 and 5, were at home when their mother was killed.
Because prosecutors Kevin Rousseau and Tamla Ray are not seeking the death penalty in the case, if convicted, Williams would automatically be sentenced to life in prison.
In cross-examination, defense attorney Jim Shaw questioned Hernandez on how prints that had recently been deemed not of "AFIS quality" by the Police Department's fingerprint "guru" -- and that had been entered into the AFIS system seven times without success-- could suddenly yield a match.
"The AFIS process involves different stages, different people who enter the information into the system," Hernandez answered.
"If the system is not entered in a precise manner, there could be difficulty in making an identity."
Shaw suggested that the AFIS process is "subjective" and that the fingerprints had been manipulated.
The trial is scheduled to continue today.
- Jeff Kimble, P.I.
- Jeff Kimble is a Licensed Private Investigator and co-owner of Arizona Legal Document Services, a certified legal document preparation company, and Arizona Private Investigations, a licensed private investigations agency. Jeff is a member in good standing of the Arizona Association of Licensed Private Investigators, the United States Association of Professional Investigators, the National Association of Professional Process Servers, and the World Association of Detectives.