Travis Co. District Judge Wilford Flowers has denied a motion to suppress evidence in the murder of 23-year-old Jennifer Cave, who was dismembered and left in a bathtub in an apartment in West Campus last summer. At a pretrial hearing Aug. 4, Flowers ruled that Cave’s mother’s boyfriend, Jim Sedwick, acted reasonably when he forced his way into Colton Pitonyak‘s empty apartment on Aug. 18, 2005, where he found Cave’s dismembered body in the bathtub, a hacksaw lying on her chest. Attorney Sam Bassett, who is defending Pitonyak, argued that all evidence found inside the apartment should be suppressed because Sedwick, and later, police, entered the apartment illegally. Flowers disagreed, however; Cave had been missing (and, reportedly, was last seen with Pitonyak), her car was found in the parking lot outside Pitonyak’s apartment, and no one answered when Sedwick knocked on the door.
According to police, Cave, a former UT student, went to dinner with Pitonyak on Aug. 16; later that evening she called a friend, Michael Rodriguez, saying that she was going to help an angry Pitonyak find his missing cell phone. According to police, that was the last time anyone heard from Cave. Two days later Sedwick found her body in the bathtub, with a hacksaw Pitonyak reportedly bought Aug. 17, along with several other items, including latex gloves, carpet cleaner, and ammonia.
Pitonyak’s trial is slated to begin Oct. 9.
This article appears in August 11 • 2006.