Thread: TN-DNA samples taken from slaying suspect

DNA samples taken from slaying suspect
News Sentinel staff
Tuesday, October 7, 2008


HANDOUT

Valentino Miranda
Related documents
Affidavit for search warrant
Search warrant
See the flier handed out by the Hampton family
Statement issued by Eddie Daniel, the Hampton family’s attorney


Knoxville Police Department investigators have taken saliva swabs and hair samples from Valentino Vasquez Miranda, the suspect in the slaying of former Alabama homecoming queen Jennifer Lee Hampton.

Miranda, 19, is charged with first-degree murder.

According to documents filed in the case against Miranda, Knoxville police obtained a search warrant for hair and saliva samples, took two mouth swabs and 10 head hairs from him at the Knox County Detention Facility, where he is being held on $1 million bond.

Miranda, an illegal immigrant, and his wife, Rosa Rodriguez, worked and lived at the Days Inn motel on Lovell Road, where Hampton was staying on a business trip when she went missing sometime after Sept. 19.

Her nude body was found Sept. 27 floating in Melton Hill Lake. She had apparently been strangled.

Police have alleged that Miranda used a master key card to gain entry to Hampton's room.

Rodriguez says that her husband had left their room at 3:55 a.m. on Sept. 20 and returned between 5:15 a.m. and 5:20 a.m., according to an affidavit by Investigator Steven Still. Later that morning when she and her husband cleaned Hampton's empty room, she noticed blood on the bedsheet and a pillow case, the affidavit states.

Rodriguez also has identified some bloody clothing as belonging to her husband, the affidavit states.

Hampton, 21, a native of Waterloo, Ala., had plans to enter nursing school. She had come to Knoxville to help train new workers for the opening of Mama Blue's Buffet restaurant.

Motel records for Miranda's key card, together with his bloody clothes and the tip from his worried wife, led to his arrest, according to court records.

A second man arrested on forgery charges with Miranda has not been charged in connection with Hampton's slaying.

The warrant charging Miranda doesn't address how blood got on Miranda's clothes or list a motive for Hampton's killing.

A preliminary hearing is set for Oct. 10.


http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/oct/0 ... ng-suspect

Related earlier Thread for this update at

http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-133932-0.html