LAW WEEK COLORADO
DENVER – A Greeley jury will go into deliberations, solving the 15-year disappearance of Kristina Tournai-Sandoval with only circumstantial evidence – no DNA, no fingerprints, no weapon and no body.
John Sandoval, Tournai-Sandoval’s estranged husband and alleged murderer, has been on trial for about a month. The day Tournai-Sandoval was reported missing, he was found in the early morning hours with a wet shovel and scratches on his neck.
Prosecutors pointed out to jurors that the case’s circumstantial evidence – Sandoval’s reluctance to talk to police, conflicting statements concerning the whereabouts of the victim and his history of stalking and harassing women – all pointed to one inevitable conclusion An former federal prosecutor’s analysis of hundreds of “no-body” murder trials found that many trials like Sandoval’s will result in a murder conviction because the killer usually has a close relation with the victim.
“The vast majority of [no-body murder cases] are between two people who know one another,” said Tad DiBiase, a former U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C. and a self-proclaimed “no-body guy.” “‘Stranger’ no-body cases are very rare. Most involve husbands killing wives, boyfriends killing girlfriends and parents killing biological or step children. For those reasons, they end up having a high conviction rate. I think over the last 10 to 15 years, with advances in forensics particularly in DNA, it’s not as hard to win a conviction in those cases.”
Sandoval’s public defenders criticized law enforcement efforts in Tournai-Sandoval’s disappearance, calling it a “tunnel-vision” investigation.
““Physical evidence doesn’t lie, it does not change stories, it does not forget, and it does not exaggerate, and it does not lose its memory,” Public Defender Ken Barker told the jury.
Read the rest of the coverage in the Sandoval murder trial in the Greeley Tribune.
