U.S. marshals have arrested 22-year-old UT student Colton Pitonyak, whom Austin police have charged with the first-degree felony murder of 21-year-old UT student Jennifer Cave, whose stabbed and mutilated body was found Aug. 18 in the bathtub at Pitonyak’s apartment at 2529 Rio Grande. Pitonyak was picked up in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on an immigration violation – a move that allowed officials to legally sidestep deportation proceedings – and moved to Eagle Pass, Texas, where he remains in the Maverick Co. jail awaiting transfer to Travis Co.
According to an arrest affidavit filed by Austin police, Cave went to dinner with Pitnoyak on Aug. 16. Around 1am that night, police say, Cave called a friend, Michael Rodriguez, saying that Pitonyak “had lost his cell telephone and was very upset about it,” the affidavit reads. While Cave was still on the phone, Pitonyak allegedly tried to break into and then urinated on a car. Cave told Rodriguez that she was going to help Pitonyak look for his cell phone. On Aug. 18, police found Cave’s body in the tub in Pitonyak’s apartment. She had been shot and stabbed, and several of her limbs had been severed from her body with a hacksaw that police found lying on her chest. Police say that on Aug. 17 Pitonyak bought the hacksaw, along with several other items – including latex gloves, ammonia, carpet cleaner, and 55-gallon drum liners – from the Breed & Co. hardware store on 29th Street. Store owner Jeff Breed told police that he remembered Pitonyak, who told him that he needed the hacksaw to “cut up a turkey.” Police tracked Pitonyak to Mexico by locating his former girlfriend’s Cadillac, which border officials said crossed into Mexico on Aug. 19. Pitonyak’s former girlfriend, a minor, has been released to the custody of her parents.
This article appears in August 26 • 2005.