and one of the cigarettes had been left on the counter to burn down to its filter. some more ordinary smoker might have left it there for an hour or a day or more. but not christie fleming. they sent those butts to the sheriff department s crime lab, ordered the most sophisticated tests available and waited. and this time the result was perfectly clear. it positively identified art gutierrez as the suspect. without any doubt. without any doubt. and again, it comes back to her habits and customs. when art was talked to originally, he said he hadn t been there for two to three months. now, maybe at my house cigarette butts would be in the trash can for two to three months, but not christie. uh-huh. those were there that night. but there was still one little problem with this case. the cigarette butts only placed art gutierrez at the crime scene. they didn t prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he actually killed christie
she was just 25 when she was killed. now all these years later when christie fleming would have been approaching middle age, her family got astonishing news. the long stalled hunt for her killer was on again. i didn t want to get my hopes up, but i thought, wow! this is just incredible. but there was still a potentially fatal weakness in the case. dna certainly put art gutierrez, christie s former boyfriend, in her condo, and her compulsion for neatness strongly suggested art s visit occurred just before the murder. but that by itself didn t prove he killed her. one thing that could help persuade a jury that gutierrez was, indeed the killer, and that was a suspected lie he had repeated to detective davis. the last time he saw christie, he had said, was about two to three months before her murder and never once after that. trouble was, none of that was on
morning, all kinds of late hours. christie had casually mentioned it to a few friends, but she apparently wasn t annoyed enough to turn him away. for whatever reason, she always let art in, and on occasion, he even spent the night. whatever the relationship was between the two of them was a secret from a lot of people. sure. did you even know about it at the time? i had no clue. she had not told you anything? no. detectives brought gutierrez in for questioning, and he was cooperative. he even admitted seeing christie for a while, but they had broken it off two or three months before the murder, he said. as for the night christie was killed? art insisted he was nowhere near the condo, and he could prove it. he had been with his wife that evening, that they had, i believe, gone to a party with some people. and his wife backed up the story. he was asked to take a polygraph. he did not want to take a polygraph. he refused. gutierrez did, however, submit a saliva sampl
she said yeah, i went to meet art. he was telling me he s making all this money, he s got great things going. and then he asked me for a ride. she said, where s your car? he said, i don t have a car. i don t have a license because i have warrants. warrants? no car? no license? maybe art wasn t quite as successful as he claimed he was. and according to janice, he told christie something rather strange. i remember this so clearly, her telling me, art s still telling stories. he said, you know, christie, god punished me. i could never have children because of you having that abortion. what she certainly did not know was that art somehow failed to mention he was actually married, and he had three children, and they were all living together, he and his wife and their kids, at his mother-in-law s house, conveniently close to christie s condo. apparently this art gutierrez had a habit of showing up at her apartment at 2:00 in the
she was just 25 when she was killed. now all these years later when christie fleming would have been approaching middle age, her family got astonishing news. the long stalled hunt for her killer was on again. i didn t want to get my hopes up, but i thought, wow! this is just incredible. but there was still a potentially fatal weakness in the case. dna certainly put art gutierrez, christie s former boyfriend, in her condo, and her compulsion for neatness strongly suggested art s visit occurred just before the murder. but that by itself didn t prove he killed her. one thing that could help persuade a jury that gutierrez was, indeed the killer, and that was a suspected lie he had repeated to detective davis. the last time he saw christie, he had said, was about two to