Lisa Valdez
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Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. When 36-year-old computer programmer Lisa Valdez was found dead inside her upscale San Francisco apartment, the police immediately suspected she was killed by someone she knew.

But even after the police collected DNA samples from all of her male friends and family members, they were no closer to making an arrest. And the case eventually turned cold. Can new DNA testing be used to help track down a killer? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 217, The Murder of Lisa Valdez. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings. As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases and

conduct in-depth fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Before we get to the episode, we've got two new Patreon supporters to thank. Thank you so much to Tracy B and Theo. Now let's get to this week's episode.

On Saturday, May 16th, 1998, 36-year-old Lisa Valdez hosted a dinner party at her San Francisco apartment. A few months earlier, Lisa's mom, Helen Valdez, purchased the studio apartment on Red Rock Way in the upscale neighborhood of Diamond Heights in San Francisco, California. The party was to celebrate her new place, so Lisa invited over her mom, Helen, her boyfriend, and a few close friends.

It was a tiny apartment, but it was all the space that Lisa needed. The view outside her bedroom window of the city and East Bay was worth the price tag alone. Plus, as a single woman working as a software analyst, she didn't need much space besides a kitchen, a small living room, a sleeping area, and a bathroom. It was perfect for Lisa, and on May 16, 1998, she was excited to finally share the finished apartment.

After the dinner party wrapped up, Helen stayed behind to help her daughter clean up. Then around midnight, when all the dishes were done and the place was clean, Helen said goodnight to Lisa and left the apartment. She even tells Lisa she'll talk to her tomorrow. But when the next day rolled around, Sunday, May 17th, Helen didn't hear anything from her. At first, this doesn't really seem to bother Helen.

She knows her daughter is a grown woman and has a life of her own. Plus, Lisa usually went to a dance class on Sunday afternoons. So if she skipped a phone call with her mom every once in a while, it wasn't a big deal. Maybe Lisa had plans that Sunday that her mother didn't know about. So Helen went about her day and didn't think much about it.

But Lisa missed her regular Sunday afternoon dance class, which was highly unusual. It was completely out of character for her to ever miss a class. By Monday morning, Helen still hadn't heard from her daughter, so she started to get a little worried. She tried calling her apartment a few times between Sunday and Monday morning, but no one answered. Then by late Monday morning, Lisa's work called Helen, saying she hadn't shown up to work that morning.

And that's when Helen instantly knew that something was really wrong. On Wednesday, it had been almost four days since anyone had heard or seen Lisa. And Lisa's neighbors wondered if something had happened to her inside that tiny studio apartment. Some neighbors reported to the building's manager that they noticed a strong odor coming from Lisa's unit. So the building manager decided to swing by her apartment and check on her.

When he got there, the first strange thing he noticed was that the front door was left unlocked. So he opened the door and pushed his way inside. That's when he saw a bloody body lying in the middle of the living room floor and quickly closed the door and called 911. Not long after the police got to the apartment, Lisa's mom Helen also showed up and saw the yellow crime scene tape all over the complex.

She went up to one of the officers and asked if Lisa was okay. She already knew the answer. She just needed to ask for herself. 36-year-old Lisa Valdez grew up in San Francisco, California, one of the most popular cities in the entire state. She made friends easily and never met anyone she didn't like. Besides dance, Lisa's second biggest passion in life was computer science.

So no one was too surprised when Lisa landed her first computer programming job at a large San Francisco company. She had always been so interested in computers and their technology, which is a little unusual for a young female, especially in the late 1990s. The industry was primarily dominated by males, but Lisa didn't seem bothered by that at all. She was good at her job and by all accounts, just as qualified as anyone else.

maybe even a little more qualified than some of her male counterparts. When the police got inside the apartment on Wednesday, it appeared like Lisa had already been dead for at least a couple of days. That's because her body was in a pretty advanced stage of decomposition. It also didn't help that her thermostat was set to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, which sped up the decomposition and probably caused the strong odor the neighbors smelled earlier.

Lisa was found partially naked, lying on the living room floor. Her television was still on, and there was a large amount of blood on the bed and floor surrounding her body. Even though the apartment was a little messy, nothing seemed out of place, and nothing appeared like it was stolen or missing like this had been a robbery. All of Lisa's valuables were found still inside the apartment, including her jewelry and purse.

Another strange thing about this scene was that there didn't appear to be any signs of a break-in. So, Lisa let the murderer inside herself. Getting inside of Lisa's particular unit isn't easy either. There are multiple layers of security before someone can just walk up to someone's apartment. Someone would have to call Lisa directly from the intercom downstairs, ask to be buzzed in.

They would then have to take an elevator up to the second or third floor and walk across the terrace to Lisa's unit. So it seemed likely she knew her attacker. The police knew Lisa attempted to fight back before she was killed. This was evident by the number of defensive wounds on her body. There was also evidence she had been sexually assaulted. She was naked from the waist down and her underwear was found a few feet away from her body.

Right away, detectives went door to door and spoke with every single one of Lisa's neighbors, wanting to find out if anyone heard or saw anything strange over the weekend. And that's when they got their first clue. According to one of Lisa's neighbors, he was out of town over the weekend. But when he came home, he noticed the deadbolt on his front door was damaged. He also noted there was a little blood smear on it.

At first, he thought someone tried to break in while he was out of town. But since nothing was out of place inside his apartment, he didn't report the incident to the San Francisco police. So detectives wondered if this possible break-in had anything to do with Lisa's murder. Inside Lisa's apartment, detectives found a ton of forensic evidence, including blood-stained bedsheets, blood-stained pillowcases, and her body and torn underwear.

all possible sources of the killer's DNA. There were also two Band-Aids found on the toilet, and the toilet seat had been left up, which was a little strange to investigators because, as a single female who lived alone, Lisa was unlikely to leave the seat up. So all the evidence was collected and sent for testing, but the results didn't reveal much.

They could only tell that most of the DNA didn't belong to Lisa, but belonged to some unknown male who wasn't in the system. This same unknown DNA was also found underneath Lisa's fingernails and in the bloodstain found on the neighbor's front door, meaning the killer must have tried to break in next door too. They also lifted a partial fingerprint from the toilet seat lid, but they couldn't identify a match.

An autopsy showed that Lisa had been stabbed 21 times to her face, jaw, chin, neck, and chest. Three of the stab wounds penetrated major blood vessels, which caused Lisa to lose a lot of blood really quickly. In fact, some of these wounds would have led to death within minutes. However, because of the amount of decomposition, the medical examiner wasn't able to pinpoint an exact time of death.

They only knew that Lisa's mom left the apartment around midnight and Lisa didn't show up for her dance class on Sunday afternoon. So Lisa could have been killed any time during that window. As investigators continue to work the crime scene, they noticed something really strange. Some of Lisa's hair had been cut off. Her super long, dark brown hair was one of her most distinguishing features.

For as long as they can remember, all of Lisa's friends and family remembered how long she wore her hair. It was almost down to her legs. And in a way, it was virtually her signature. But when cops showed up, her hair had been chopped above her shoulders. Whoever did this presumably cut off some of her hair to take with him as a trophy.

The evidence seemed clear. Lisa Valdez's killer was someone she knew. But the question remains, what could drive someone close to Lisa to commit such a murder? Who had the motive and who had the means to do this? We'll be right back. As the investigation progressed, another tip came in about a possible timeline. The police found an envelope taped inside Lisa's front door.

Inside was cash that Lisa always left her house cleaner to pick up on Monday mornings. But when the cops looked inside, the cash was still in there. Every Monday, Lisa's house cleaner showed up to clean the apartment around 10 o'clock in the morning. And before she left, she took the cash with her. But since the money was still there, the cops knew the cleaner hadn't taken it. Now, to be clear, they never suspected the cleaner had anything to do with the murder.

But it did help establish a timeline. Detectives knew that Lisa's mom left around midnight on Saturday night. By the time the cleaner got to Lisa's apartment on Monday morning around 10, she was already dead. When the cops spoke to the maid, she said she got to the apartment on Monday morning like she usually did. But when she opened the front door, she saw Lisa. She was lying on the floor, but she didn't see any blood.

So her first thought was that she was asleep or had a male friend spending the night with her. So she decided to turn around and leave without cleaning the apartment or picking up her paycheck. She also told the cops that she didn't see Lisa's gym bag, which was usually inside the apartment. And when detectives first arrived on Wednesday, they didn't find Lisa's gym bag either. This made them believe the killer must have taken it with him when he left.

He also would have taken the murder weapon since that wasn't found in the apartment either. This timeline of Lisa's murder was further solidified when the cops spoke with one of the neighbors, who said they heard a loud thumping sound coming from her unit early Sunday morning. The police began their investigation by asking all of Lisa's male friends, co-workers, and family members to provide DNA and fingerprint samples.

They knew they had unknown DNA and fingerprints collected from the scene, so if they could find a match, they would have their killer. All of her male friends and family members needed to be excluded, and one by one, they all were. No one close to Lisa was her killer, based on who provided DNA and fingerprint samples. Next, police looked for clues on Lisa's answering machine. By the time Wednesday came around, there were dozens of unanswered messages.

One of the people who left a message on the machine was a guy named Albert Cato. Albert and Lisa met through his work at a recruiting firm, and the two had chatted back and forth and had their first date the Friday before Lisa was killed. By all accounts, the date went well, and they planned their second date for that Sunday. But Albert said they canceled before Sunday so the date never happened.

When Albert was brought down to the police station for questioning, the cops noticed he had a fresh cut on one of his hands. Right away, this set off alarm bells in detectives' minds. They knew Lisa had been stabbed dozens of times, and in a lot of stabbing cases, the killer would accidentally cut or injure themselves. That's because the blade gets slippery or covered in blood. But Albert denied having anything to do with the murder and said that the cut happened somewhere else.

Still, the cops didn't believe him, and Albert agreed to take a polygraph test, which he reportedly failed, only raising the level of suspicion. But on June 5th, less than a month after Lisa's murder, the detectives got their answer about Albert Cato. Albert's DNA and fingerprints did not match those collected from the crime scene, so he wasn't their guy, and investigators were back at square one.

Besides Albert Cato, there were a lot of other messages on Lisa's answering machine, but none of them really stood out. Most of them were just phone calls from people wondering where she was and why she didn't show up to dance class or work. Until they listened to a couple of calls from an unknown caller early on Sunday morning. The caller turned out to be a man named Albert Robinson.

He was a friend of one of Lisa's co-workers and had known Lisa for several years. The reason his phone calls stood out was because he called super early on Sunday morning, the same exact time they suspected Lisa was murdered. As it turned out, Albert might have had the perfect motive. According to some of Lisa's friends, Albert always talked about how he and Lisa were dating and were going to get married someday and have lots of kids together.

But was any of that true? None of Lisa's friends thought they were dating or together, and Albert just seemed to be a guy who was a little obsessed with her. They all said one thing. The feelings weren't mutual between the two of them. But for investigators, this was a huge break. If someone like Albert Robinson was obsessed with Lisa, maybe that was motive enough to assault and kill her.

So right away, they started considering him as a possible suspect. Like the other Albert, Albert Robinson was also brought down to the police station for questioning. From the start, he denied everything and said that he had nothing to do with it. He told investigators that he loved Lisa and would never do anything to hurt her, especially not murder. But investigators weren't convinced.

But without any solid forensic evidence linking him to anything, they had no choice but to let him go. A few months later, the San Francisco police got a search warrant to look through Albert's house. Inside, they found dozens of photographs of Lisa virtually everywhere. It was proof that he was just as obsessed with Lisa as her friends had said.

Albert provided DNA and fingerprint samples, but to everyone's surprise, he wasn't a match either. So this Albert guy might have been obsessed with Lisa, but he wasn't a murderer. Months started to pass with very little progress in the investigation, which caused Lisa's family and friends to become devastated. How could someone just get away with doing something like this?

The months eventually turned to years, and the case went cold before anything could be done about it. On the 10th year anniversary of Lisa's murder in 2008, the case was as cold as ever. Throughout the years, San Francisco detectives would re-upload the killer's DNA into CODIS, hoping there would be a match. They would recheck the fingerprints, hoping for a match, but there never was.

They kept reliving some of the same heartbreaking disappointment over and over again. Lisa's family also struggled to move on with their lives. It was just so painful not knowing who was responsible and that a killer was out there on the loose. Things were never the same at Lisa's old apartment complex either. If someone could break in and attack Lisa inside of her apartment, what was stopping them from doing it again?

Lisa's murder really changed everything for her family, her friends, and neighbors, especially after a full decade went without any arrests. The only bright thing was that as the years passed, DNA technology improved, and one of the most significant improvements was the evolution of familial DNA testing. This type of testing is especially useful for cases with unknown DNA.

but that DNA isn't in any known database. If that's the case, the DNA can be used to find relatives or family members of the person law enforcement is searching for, like a cousin or a grandparent. Even if the police can identify just one single distant relative of the suspect, sometimes that's enough to find them.

In 2011, the time had come to finally try familial DNA testing to help bring justice for Lisa. Ten long years have passed since Lisa Valdez's murder and the trail has gone cold. But just when it seems all is lost, a new technology emerges. Will this breakthrough be the key to unlocking the truth? We'll be right back. The entire process took about 12 months, but in the end, it was all worth it.

On September 2, 2011, police in San Francisco got a phone call from the U.S. Department of Justice. They had good news and they had bad news. The bad news was that the DOJ's crime lab wasn't going to do familial DNA testing on Lisa's case. But what about the good news?

Well, they didn't exactly need to do any type of familial DNA testing because instead of finding any relatives of Lisa's killer, they found an exact match. Before doing any type of familial search, the DOJ also did a last-minute search in CODIS. At that moment, they finally got a hit.

After over a decade, the police in San Francisco finally had some good news to deliver to Lisa's family. DNA test results confirmed that the unknown DNA collected at the crime scene was a match to a man named Anthony Quinn Hughes. So who is this guy? And what's his connection to Lisa Valdez? When detectives looked into Anthony Hughes' background, they discovered he had quite the criminal record.

but none of those charges required him to submit a DNA or fingerprint sample, which explains why his DNA was never in CODIS. At the time of Lisa's murder in 1999, California's laws about collecting DNA from criminals were much different than it is today. If someone was arrested for a non-violent crime, they were never asked to provide a DNA or fingerprint sample.

Today, these laws are much different, and we've expanded our DNA collection program. Most criminals are now required to provide their DNA all thanks to Proposition 69, a prop that voters passed in 2004 in California. So when Anthony Hughes was arrested in 2011 for shoplifting, he was required to submit a sample of his DNA.

And when the DOJ's crime lab compared the DNA collected from Lisa's apartment to the samples uploaded to CODIS, they finally got a match. But before the police could go in and arrest Hughes for Lisa's murder, they needed to double-check one thing. Did the unknown fingerprint collected from Lisa's toilet seat also match? Detectives submitted Hughes' fingerprints, which were also in the database, to be compared against the toilet seat print.

And when the results came back, everyone was ecstatic. They were a match just like the DNA. His right middle finger matched all 14 points of comparison. Anthony Hughes was the one who left the toilet seat up inside Lisa's apartment after he killed her.

Detectives went back to Lisa's answering machine for the third time, and when they did, they were surprised to find out Hughes had actually left Lisa a message not long after the murder happened. When the detectives first listened to the messages and heard Hughes, they didn't think much about it. But now that he was on top of their suspect list, everything seemed to fall into place.

Anthony Hughes called Lisa's apartment and left a message early on Sunday morning after investigators believed she was already dead. He was trying to establish an alibi, but instead, the message only made him look guiltier. Lisa Valdez and Anthony Quinn Hughes had known each other for years. They even briefly dated in junior high school, but none of Lisa's friends ever liked him very much.

After they broke up, they continued to be friends. That was just the kind of person Lisa was. But that was decades ago. We're talking about when they were 13 or 14 years old. What brought Anthony Hughes and Lisa Valdez back together all those years later in 1999? When investigators first searched Lisa's apartment, they found her address book. And inside, there was a phone number for a guy named Huggy.

Huggy was Anthony Hughes. Tracking Hughes down wasn't easy. By the time he was considered the prime suspect, the San Francisco police didn't find any known address. He was listed in the system as a transient, so technically, he could be anywhere in San Francisco, or even outside the state of California.

After the arrest warrant was issued, the police started circulating his photo around areas Hughes was known to frequent, hoping someone would call in a tip. But they didn't have to wait for that to happen. Not long after the posters went up, two plain-clothed officers spotted Hughes jaywalking across the street and took him into custody. At first, he thought he was being arrested in connection to a robbery case.

He had no idea he was being questioned about Lisa's murder over a decade earlier until the cops showed him a picture of Lisa. Inside the interrogation room, the cops showed Hughes the picture and asked him if he recognized the woman. At first, he said no, but the cops pressed him and said, so you don't know Elisa Valdez?

At that moment, he did a double take on the photo and eventually said yes. He remembered her from junior high school, and he even admitted to dating her all those years earlier. He said they met at a house party and briefly dated, but insisted the breakup was mutual and there weren't any hard feelings between them. Hughes then claimed he hadn't seen Lisa in years, and the last time he saw her was sometime in the 80s.

According to him, Lisa invited him over to her dorm room at Mills College one day and was bragging about how many guys she was sleeping with. Hughes thought the conversation was weird and left. After that, he claimed to have never seen her again and didn't even know that she'd been murdered. Then detectives dropped the hammer on Hughes and said that they found his DNA at the crime scene.

So they knew he was lying, and it was finally time to face the music. The next thing Hughes did was ask the detectives for a pen and a piece of paper. For investigators, they just thought he was about to write down a full confession to everything. Maybe he was finally ready to get this off his chest. But instead, he took the pen and started stabbing himself in the neck and kept saying over and over again he wanted to die.

Anthony Hughes was ultimately arrested for Lisa's murder, and the first person the detectives called was Lisa's mom, Helen. After 13 long years, Helen received the phone call she was worried might not ever come. Anthony Hughes' arrest came as a surprise not only to Helen, but also to everyone who knew Lisa. This was someone that she knew, someone she went to junior high school and even briefly dated.

So what drove him to come back after all of this time and murder her? After four years of delays, Anthony Hughes' murder trial finally began in December 2015. His defense team argued he was physically incapable of attacking Lisa. They alleged he was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder in 1993, and the condition causes weak muscles and bones.

so it would have been impossible for him to pull this off. However, the prosecution presented evidence showing Hughes went for a doctor's appointment the same year Lisa was killed, and the doctor made no mention of any physical limitations. The doctor also found that Hughes was compliant with all of his medication, and all of his symptoms would have been under control. So this completely contradicts the defense's argument.

But the biggest piece of evidence at trial wasn't how physically strong or weak Anthony Hughes was. It all came down to the forensic evidence. The prosecutor explained to the jury multiple times throughout the trial that all of the unknown DNA and fingerprints collected from inside Lisa's apartment all matched one single person, Anthony Quinn Hughes. And that was all the jury needed to hear.

Anthony Hughes was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing Lisa Valdez, but the jury was unable to reach a verdict on the charge of rape. But before he could be sentenced, his defense lawyers filed an appeal saying that the 13 years it took the police and prosecutors to charge him was too long. So the conviction was downgraded from first-degree murder to second-degree.

and Hughes was given a 16-year to life prison sentence, which means he could be released on parole after serving only 16 years. In August 2018, a three-judge panel reviewed Hughes' appeal and upheld his conviction. They rejected his claim that the delay violated any of his constitutional rights.

Today, Anthony Quinn Hughes remains in custody and won't be eligible for parole until 2031. As for Lisa's loved ones, they can finally try their best to move on with their lives. Although Hughes' conviction won't bring Lisa back, they at least have a little bit of closure, knowing the person responsible for her murder is behind bars, and a killer has been taken off the streets.

The forensic evidence speaks for itself when it comes to Anthony Quinn Hughes' guilt or innocence. Every drop of unknown DNA collected at the crime scene came back as a match, and the single fingerprint collected from Lisa's toilet seat also matched. It may have taken over a decade, but DNA and forensic evidence finally linked him to a case that was once considered cold as ice.

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