Insulated Evidence

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It's usually easy to figure out how a criminal enters a crime scene, but in this case, it was far from clear.

It looked like the killer vanished in thin air.

And perhaps he had.

Getting into medical school.

It's the hope and dream of thousands of students who apply each year.

Then pray they'll be accepted.

Michael Andrade was one of those hopefuls.

He really wanted to be a doctor.

He really wanted to help people.

Just recently, my mom

told me she used to tell him, don't worry, Michael, all your hard work's going to pay off.

Because he worked really hard at school.

In 2005, Michael was a pre-med student at St.

Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas.

He decided not to live in the dorms, so he rented an apartment a few miles from campus.

He actually chose that apartment because it seemed more family-oriented than the other apartments.

He said that was the one he felt safer at.

One morning in February of that year, workmen smelled smoke coming from Michael's apartment.

They noticed that the windows were coated with soot, and when they went to the door it was unlocked.

And as soon as they opened the front door, smoke came billowing out.

They were forced out because of the smoke and when they went back in, they found Mr.

Andrade laying on the bed.

Michael Andrade

had been strangled to death.

His body was somewhat burned, but very little compared to if the fire would have taken over.

He was found with one of his arms, his right arm in fact, back behind him, about belt high.

It appeared that he had been at some point tied up with his hands behind him.

There were no signs of forced entry, but electronic equipment was missing.

There was a entertainment center that had speakers hanging off the front of it, which appeared to have been connected to something, and that item was missing.

On the computer desk was a perfect, you know, demarcation of where a computer would have sat.

This meant that the computer had been stolen after the fire started.

And the fire was set in three different locations.

Arson investigators gave information from the beginning that the fire probably was not started with an accelerant.

It wasn't gasoline, it wasn't lighter fluid, anything that would create big flame type, a big flame type fire.

A winged back chair placed in between the kitchen and dining area was the site of one fire.

The foot of the bed was another.

And the third fire started on the floor of the bedroom closet.

I have watched a lot of forensic shows, and I knew that that seemed like a cover-up.

That when there's three points of fire, one person's not gonna, the person who's obviously passed away was not the person who said it, that there was obviously going to be someone trying to cover up whatever evidence was in the apartment.

Michael had been wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt, an indication he might have known the perpetrator and willingly let him or her inside.

He knew them and was comfortable enough around them to be just in his underwear.

If it was somebody that he didn't know,

everyone was certain that he would have put on more clothing before he answered the door.

With no forensic evidence, investigators hoped that the stolen items might lead to the identity of the killer.

There was always a chance that something would happen.

Something would break later.

Someone would brag about the crime.

Someone would come across the stolen material and stolen property and bring that back and we could track it back that way.

Or maybe there was evidence in the apartment that they couldn't yet see.

At Michael Andrade's autopsy, The medical examiner confirmed what investigators already suspected.

She did find that he had been murdered before the fire was set because there was no smoke in his lungs.

The deposit of soot across the body indicated that he had actually died in that face-down position because the soot deposition was much more prominent across the back of the body.

The cause of death was strangulation with a piece of cloth ripped from the bedsheet.

And Dr.

Dana also found fiberglass insulation on the body.

This was unusual since there was very little structural damage caused by the fire.

The material deposited was

there alone.

There's a possibility that it had been deposited by the perpetrator when the deceased was strangled.

It's unusual that you would see just the insulation material without this other debris, such as wood, burned wood, nails, screws that have come out, and even fixtures out of the ceiling.

In their search for suspects, investigators couldn't find find anyone who had a motive to kill Michael Andrade.

He never had any enemies.

I never seen him mad at anybody, upset about anything.

It's a person that you don't even think

anybody would have anything against him.

So I had no idea.

Investigators discovered one person who was apparently angry with him.

His longtime girlfriend, a fellow student, 22-year-old Lily Macias.

I do remember quite a few fights between the two of them where he'd be very upset,

either hurt or mad at her.

I don't know exactly what would happen.

It was just they would have problems and you could tell.

Investigators found a voicemail from Lily to Michael left at 8.30 that morning.

She had left a message on Michael's cell phone indicating that they were having problems and that she was done with their relationship.

Was it possible that Lily went to Michael's apartment afterwards and there was an altercation?

At that point, combined with the fact that it seemed like Michael may have known the person who did this to him, she was initially a suspect.

But Lily had an alibi.

She was working at her part-time job on the morning of the murder and was eliminated as a suspect.

She was very forthcoming.

She was willing to give us a statement, willing to allow us search of her apartment, willing to allow us a search of her vehicle.

Michael's sister, Stephanie, provided the first solid lead.

She said Michael complained about a man he saw around the apartment complex.

The guy would just talk to him, but that the guy made him feel very uncomfortable for some reason.

He didn't say why.

The guy never said anything suspicious to him or anything mean, but he just said he always felt a little uncomfortable or a little uneasy around the guy just because his character seemed a little off.

Unfortunately, Michael never identified the man, provided a physical description, or mentioned where in the complex he lived.

Right at that point, the investigators had merely the crime, the crime scene, and a very large universe of potential suspects with not a whole lot to go on pinpointing a specific person.

With no other suspects for the murder of Michael Andrade,

Investigators appealed to the public for help.

Four days later, an anonymous tipster called.

The Crime Stopper's tip was amazing in its detail.

The tipster told police the killer didn't enter Andrade's apartment through the front door or even a window.

He entered through an attic crawl space.

The tipster knew that Mr.

Andrade's laptop was missing, knew about the contents of the laptop, which was never public information.

You really have to question, how would somebody know this kind of information?

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Investigators got an anonymous tip in the Michael Andrade murder investigation that the killer entered Michael's apartment through a crawl space in the attic.

Sure enough, investigators found a paneled opening to the attic in the ceiling of Michael's bedroom closet.

When investigators checked it out, they discovered that someone could access other apartments through the crawl space.

The insulation was only matted between Michael's apartment and apartment number 1002.

None of the insulation above any of the other apartments had been disturbed.

The only apartment that had been disturbed was Michael Andrade's apartment.

The tenant of Apartment 1002 was 23-year-old Maria Soliz, a single mother who lived there with her three-year-old son.

Maria, I'm Detective Titus with the central.

When questioned by police, Maria claimed she didn't even know Michel Andrade

or where he lived.

But investigators didn't believe her, so they took the unusual step of confiscating Maria's vacuum cleaner and the clothes in her hamper.

Investigators found a pair of men's jeans, and on those jeans were tiny glass fibers.

The small air pockets within the glass had expanded, creating a distinctive football shape.

This was fiberglass insulation that had been in or near a fire.

The evidence was not destroyed.

It was simply charred.

This gave it unique properties, something that I can compare back to with any standards that were found at the scene.

The charred insulation on these jeans was consistent with the charred insulation found on Michael Andrade's body.

The insulation was unique.

It was burnt insulation.

So it wasn't a situation where the person could say, I'd been working at a construction site.

That's how I got this insulation on my clothing.

Wrapped around the spool of the vacuum cleaner,

investigators found highly distinctive thread.

Black polyester fibers were wrapped around cotton fibers, then colored with an unusual combination of dyes.

This thread was consistent with thread found around Michael's neck.

It matched his bed sheet,

which had been torn and used as a ligature.

Microscopically, it was the pattern that the threads had that were able to give me that distinguishing or that unique appearance that associated with the bedding material.

Also in Maria's apartment, investigators found a video camera and keys to a Ford truck.

The video contained images of Michael Andrade's family, proof that the camera was Michael's and the car keys were Michael's too.

Michael Andrade's truck was a Ford F-150 and these keys were Ford keys.

Went down with the alarm remote on the set of keys and opened up his truck.

Investigators confronted Maria Solise and wanted to know who owned the men's jeans found in her hamper.

After she was threatened with prosecution, Maria Solise changed her story.

She now admitted she had a roommate, 25-year-old Joe Luna.

She met Luna over the internet

and seemed to me to be desperate to be in a relationship with a man

and

latched on to Joe Luna.

in what I believe was a very manipulative relationship.

Maria claimed she knew nothing about Joe Luna's criminal past, that he had served five years in prison for carjacking and aggravated assault on a police officer.

And Joe Luna was wanted for a series of home invasions that bore a marked similarity to the Michael Andrade case.

He would break in, cut bedsheets up.

tie up the people who were at the house with those strips of bed sheets.

He terrorized five separate people,

three of whom were families with children.

He tied them up, he used weapons, he threatened them, he stole from them.

Brooke Anvik was a victim of one of those home invasions.

It's just indescribable.

I mean, you feel like your home is where you're safe.

After the robbery, Brooke found forensic evidence the perpetrator had left behind.

And we noticed that two cigarette butts were in the garage.

We don't smoke, and none of our friends who had been at the house recently smoke.

DNA from the saliva on the cigarette butts matched Joe Luna.

Just five days after Michael Andrade's murder, Joe Luna was arrested and charged with the crime.

Did you kill your neighbor?

I'm going to kill nobody, period.

I don't ever see myself in a position where I would have to do something like that.

Despite his denials, Joe Luna was facing a possible death sentence.

The forensic evidence painted a vivid picture of Joe Luna's movements on the morning of Michael Andrade's murder.

Prosecutors believe Joe Luna spent most of his time inside his girlfriend's apartment since he knew there were warrants out for his arrest on the robbery cases.

With nothing to do, he discovered there was an attic and crawl space above the apartment.

So he looked around and discovered there was another apartment just 60 feet away, Michael Andrade's apartment.

Prosecutors believe he opened the panel in Michael's bedroom closet and when he didn't hear any sound, dropped in.

But Michael was sleeping and the noise woke him up.

There was a struggle.

Luna tore the bedsheets, bound Michael's hands behind his back, and strangled him to death, fearing that Michael could identify him.

To mask the evidence, he set fire to the clothes in Michael's closet and returned to his girlfriend's apartment through the crawl space.

When he didn't hear the fire alarm sound, He suspected the fire went out, so he returned to Michael's apartment to start the fire again.

He stole Michael's computer, electronic equipment, and his car keys.

Before leaving, he set the two additional fires.

When Luna returned to his girlfriend's apartment, he shed fibers from Michael's apartment, which he tried to remove with his girlfriend's vacuum cleaner.

And he put his jeans into the clothes hamper, which had the burned insulation on them.

Having that forensics evidence in your back pocket as an investigator is just something that you can't overcome.

When it's on your clothing, there's a real hard

hurdle to overcome to say that I didn't do it now.

During her police interrogation, Maria Soliz eventually admitted that Luna had confessed.

Well, I was like, I wanted to an apartment.

And he's just like, well, somebody was there when I got there.

And I'm like, okay.

And he's like, well, they saw me.

He's like, so

I had to do what I had to do.

And like, what are you talking about?

What did you think in your mind that he did?

That he had hurt somebody, that

he had done

what he did to this boy.

I don't like to say the four-letter words.

I like to say the word

that he had taken this person's life.

Joe Luna headed for trial insisting he was innocent.

But the forensic evidence caused him to reconsider.

The fiber evidence that was found and the fiber evidence that I had looked at was apparently so compelling that the defendant didn't want to continue on with this case, which is quite unusual for a capital murder trial.

So Luna changed his plea to guilty and admitted what he had done in open court.

He testified that he enjoyed it, that he lived for the adrenaline rush that it gave him to victimize people and to get away with it.

I cannot fathom the terror that that young man went through.

And really, there could be nothing worse than seeing a Joe Luna walk out of your closet.

In March of 2006, Luna asked the jury to give him the death penalty.

They willingly obliged.

There are certain people in our society that have absolutely forfeited their right to live among us by their own actions.

and by their own decisions.

Joe Luna is one of those people.

Ironically, Joe Luna tried to cover up his crime by burning the evidence, but he didn't destroy it.

Instead, he made those tiny glass insulation fibers more distinctive.

It was actually the last way I thought that they would catch him.

That was furthest from my mind that it would be in a vacuum.

You have to have the forensics.

You have to have the evidence that can't skip town.

You have to have the evidence that can't lie to you.

As my old professor once said, there is no such thing as a perfect crime.

That you can plan,

you can calculate, you can try to manipulate the circumstances or the surroundings, but you will always leave a piece of trace evidence behind.