On the morning of March 17th 2005, the body of Jessie Valero was found in her living room apartment stabbed to death, with approximately 29 stab wounds, Valero's jewelry box was emptied, with the jewelry strown about her bed. Some of her jewelry was missing, and a red bike that did not belong to Valero was found in her apartment. There was no DNA, no fingerprints nor other forensic evidence found that could connect the two men to the murder.
Reyes Sanchez, and the defendant Cazares-Mendez, were charged and convicted on 7 counts - aggravated murder, intentional murder, two counts of federal murder, robbery in the first degree, burglary in the first degree, and murder in first degree.
The events that follow are according to the testimony
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The defense claimed that Tiffany Scherer killed Jessie Valero. Connie Torres, Naomi Rivera, Lise Smith and Jessica Callahan were the hearsay witnesses. The defense also produced a police detective from Hillsboro, who claimed that there were no murders in the month of March 2005 that involved a female being stabbed nearly 29 times. All four of the hearsay witnesses were long time friends with Scherer, and one was friends with the …show more content…
I had an extremely difficult time following the sequence of events. Once I read the entire case, I had to reread it several times just to make sure I was following the time sequence, evidence presented, and the court rulings. First, I do not comprehend how someone can be stabbed 29 times and there not be a single piece of DNA evidence somewhere! That just blows my mind, especially since all concerned in this case are a bunch of druggies. This group of individuals is not the most cautious of individuals. Second, how in the world did the defense find an officer to say, on the stand and under oath, that there was no murder in the month of March 2005 matching the one that took place in the month of March 2005. One eyewitness stated that he had seen the defendant throw some clothes away, and another eyewitness stated that he saw the two defendants walk back with blood on there person. I do not know how fast the police got to the trash or if they even addressed that issue. There is nothing about clothing in a dumpster nor even information from the investigation that infers that the investigators even sought to locate the alleged bloody clothing. The case description is silent on this