San Antonio, TX: DNA evidence leads to an arrest in slaying

DNA evidence left on a beer can helped San Antonio police charge a man Wednesday in the slaying of Esmeralda Herrera, 30, who had been found dead inside her burning apartment in March.
Jose Baldomero Flores III, 30, was to be booked in Bexar County Jail on one count of murder.
DNA left on a Budweiser beer can in Herrera's kitchen, along with hairs and fibers, cell phone records and a bloody shoeprint linked Flores to Herrera's death, an arrest warrant affidavit states.
Police found indications that Herrera may have been killed in the kitchen of her second-story home at the Mitchell Village Apartments, but her nude body was found in the bedroom, the affidavit states.
The Bexar County medical examiner's office ruled her death was caused by asphyxiation by strangulation with blunt force injuries to the head, according to the document.
Hours after the fire was extinguished, family members said they were told by a San Antonio Fire Department investigator that Herrera was found tied to her bed, but authorities would not confirm that. The affidavit does not say that but notes that Herrera was dead before the fire started, and that ligatures were found on her wrists and neck.
According to the affidavit, Herrera's friends told police the pair had known each other for about a year and were involved in a relationship. On March 1, she reportedly left her best friend's house around 8:45 p.m., saying she was going to clean her apartment before a man named Jose came over. Records show the couple communicated via cell phone more than 30 times that night, the affidavit states.
Neighbors noticed an unusual red Chevrolet pickup parked on the street, and a man who lived next door told police that around 12:30 a.m. on March 2, “he was startled by a woman's loud scream,” the affidavit states. He smelled smoke shortly before San Antonio Fire Department crews arrived at about 5 a.m..
Herrera had lived in the apartment for about 14 months with her cat, Cowboy, who died in the fire, relatives said. A graduate of Kennedy High School and the San Antonio campus of Texas A&M-Kingsville, she worked at a nearby dialysis clinic.
SAPD spokesman Sgt. Chris Benavides said Flores set the apartment ablaze “in an (unsuccessful) effort to destroy evidence.” Fire officials determined the fire was lit in more than one place.
The affidavit states that detectives interviewed Flores twice in April, and both times, he denied being near her apartment March 1 or 2. At the end of the second interview, police told Flores they had evidence that he was with her and at her apartment the night she was murdered, and Flores “immediately discontinued the interview and walked out of the room,” the affidavit states.
He worked for Toyota in 2010 and then worked a construction job in Mission before returning to San Antonio in January. Records show Flores was convicted of an aggravated assault with a deadly weapon that occurred in 2003, for which he was given deferred adjudication.
A warrant for Flores' arrest was issued around 11 a.m. Wednesday, and he was arrested without incident shortly after noon.