Stolen property leads to capital murder

“A neighboring municipality had a gruesome double homicide in which a female had been sexually assaulted and then murdered. Her husband had been murdered as he was returning home and tried to enter the residence. There was no physical evidence and no suspects.

While reviewing tickets from a non-participating LeadsOnline store, we got a serial number hit on property reported stolen during the offense. The property had been pawned months after the murders.

We developed a suspect for a gruesome double homicide, and we used LeadsOnline to do a complete pawn history of the suspect. We found that he had pawned other property within days of the offense. The suspect information was passed to the neighboring agency which arrested the suspect based on the information we had obtained. That property had been stolen during the offense. The suspect confessed and was convicted of capital murder.

Case update from Det. McRobbie: “The suspect in that Capital Murder case plead guilty before the court last week to escape the death penalty. We probably would not have found the victim’s jewelry without LeadsOnline. The fact that the suspect pawned the victim’s jewelry after the offense was discussed at trial. Thanks!”

Det. J.W. McRobbie
Arlington Police Department
Criminal Investigation Division
Texas