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my cousin lisa hosted a dinner party for
her mother's boyfriend
and she had several people
attend that dinner
went helen stayed after the party
helping clean up a little bit
and then helen went home
and then didn't hear from lisa the next
day or the next day
and was calling lisa and lisa wasn't
returning her calls which is very
unusual
and then it went on to monday
and helen still hadn't heard from her
and then she started becoming a little
bit concerned
then helen received a phone call from
lisa's work and they indicated that lisa
hadn't been
in work for a couple of days
and helen became alarmed
because that was completely out of
character for lisa
so and helen drove
over to diamond heights
and when anne helen arrived at lisa's
condo there was police tape surrounding
the building
neighbors had reported a foul odor
coming from lisa valdez's unit
the manager noticed that the door was
unlocked
he opened up the door
and saw a body on the floor basically
right in front of where the door opens
and he quickly closed the door and
called 9-1-1
the manager had stumbled into a murder
scene
body was on the floor at the foot of the
bed
uh she was in a pretty advanced state of
decomposition there was such a
significant amount of blood it was
plainly obvious that a violent struggle
had taken place
that she had met a very violent death
the neighbor reported that at about 1 30
early sunday morning they heard a loud
thumping sound above which would have
been lisa's apartment
we knew that her mother had left around
midnight
but the lack of forced entry into her
apartment indicated that she had to have
opened the door
there was no other explanation
we could tell that there was no robbery
or burglary involved since her purse and
her belongings money and jewelry and
whatnot were not
taken but on closer investigation
detectives make an odd discovery
part of lisa's hair has been cut off
a fixation that her killer must have had
with her
taking a souvenir
the people were terrified
because it is a gated community
someone can't just walk through the
neighborhood
and gain access to your dwelling it was
impossible detectives believe that lisa
was murdered in the early hours of
sunday may 17th and then on monday may
18th at 10 a.m the housekeeper opened up
the door and saw a body on the floor
naked
he heard the voice of a guy
and she thought she was interrupting a
intimate moment with lisa and another
person
so she leaves and then nobody finds lisa
until wednesday
the toilet seat in lisa's bathroom
became a focus of my attention because
it was left raised
it was inconsistent with a woman living
alone
inspector shoulders dusts the seat for
fingerprints
all of lisa's friends and family
provided prints
and that allowed me then to compare them
to the prints off the toilet seat the
fingerprints on the seat belong to
someone other than lisa and her guests
investigators believe they could belong
to the killer
when the blood droplets on one of lisa's
pillows was examined by the crime lab
they were able to determine first that
it was not lisa's blood
and that it was of an unknown male
profile
my mom was the last to see her alive she
told me that lisa had a date the next
afternoon
we found out that lisa was dating a
person named albert cato
and she was going to have a date with
him on
sunday may 17 1998
but he canceled the date and said he was
out to three o'clock in the morning with
friends
police bring albert cato in for an
interview as soon as he arrives they
notice a jagged cut on his hand
in a violent crime we know that when
someone is being stabbed repeatedly that
very often the person who's doing the
stabbing cuts themselves
in the act and so the fact that he had a
cut on his hand
heightened the suspicion that he may
have been involved in this crime
but on june 5th
they run tests on cato's fingerprints
and on his dna
neither matches samples found on the
scene
cato can't be the killer lisa received a
couple of calls from unknown callers at
the wee hours of sunday morning but
there are a couple of strange messages
left by the 19th caller
the 19th caller wants to know if lisa is
home on that fateful night
the weird voice messages were identified
as coming from albert robinson
who turned out to be a friend of lisa's
co-worker
and
known her for a few years
a few days later lisa's family holds a
memorial service in the chapel of her
alma mater
mills college
also in attendance none other than
albert robinson
the man behind the odd-sounding
voicemails albert robinson presented a
letter to the attendees that was very
bizarre
he talked about his love for lisa
that they were going to get married and
they were going to raise a family a very
very
completely different take on their
relationship than what lisa shared with
her friends and family
lisa was absolutely not dating albert
albert was
a person
that
had always struck me as odd
when a search warrant was served at his
home
detectives found photos of lisa
all over his house
but once again the dna and fingerprints
failed to match
eliminating robinson and dealing another
major blow to the investigation no
information was coming in as to who or
why anybody would want to kill lisa and
they definitely hit a dead end
ten years after lisa valdez's murder her
case remains
shelved but inspector shoulders always
kept it in the back of his mind
and then on september 2nd 2011 i got a
phone call from the state the dna
laboratory the codis laboratory here's
the good news you've got the hit
it's all the markers
every single peak is matching
after 10 long years sitting on ice the
case finally heats up
the dna was in the database for all
these years and it finally matched to a
person named anthony quinn hughes
ronan called me at nine o'clock at night
and he said
anthony quinn hughes right middle finger
was on that toilet seat
that was just icing on the cake because
now it's two pieces of key evidence
detectives review lisa's answering
machine
and find that hughes had left a message
after the murder
it was nondescript and not nothing
really
unusual about it
except for the fact that
he made it after she was already dead
on may 18th
did detectives make a crucial error by
overlooking the message from hughes
in my view the detectives at the time
blew it by not going far enough through
lisa's information
on her answering machine they only went
up to 19 people and researched them and
hughes
was the 22nd caller
investigators also find what appears to
be an old contact for hughes in lisa's
address book
they contacted me in the middle of the
night and i asked him to bring hughes to
homicide
when we showed him a picture of lisa
valdez
and asked him do you recognize this
person
anthony quinn hughes said no
and then i asked him
so you don't know lisa valdez and then
he did a double take shook his head and
he said oh yeah
we dated in high school
and then we hit him with the evidence
and particulars of the case
dna from you
was found in
lisa's apartment
from 1998
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okay you don't you could have been but
you don't remember
tell me what is this all about
okay anthony you know what it's all
about you know ver you know very well
that she's not alive anymore
no
i
don't
you can go ahead and cry you can get
emotional and it's good it's good
dad did something right with me
absolutely
and i thought that he was about to
write out a confession he asked for a
pen and a pad
he was bent over and he's like ready to
write
and instead of writing he started
he took the pen to his neck and his
stomach in front of us and um just went
into like a little tizzy you don't want
to die
what was going through my head was why
would he do this if he wasn't guilty
if he did in fact not have anything to
do with her murder
how is it possible that he would be
taking his life now he wants to die now
it was about 11 o'clock on saturday
morning when i told my partner kevin we
still got to find lisa's mom helen
valdez
and we got to tell her in person
after all those years of not knowing it
was very very emotional
and i get emotional thinking about it
just remembering how
much it meant to her
for some reason anthony quinn hughes
decided to murder his old friend lisa
valdez
exactly why remains a mystery
during the early arraignments hughes
walked in confident haughty
arrogant
uh with attitude right and then during
the trial he was
a very meek demeanor hunched over with a
bible in his hand and wearing a cross
around his neck so that's all you know
that's all an act
the jury finds anthony quinn hughes
guilty
of second-degree murder of lisa valdez
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you