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An affidavit filed to obtain a search warrant indicated that bloodhounds brought to the spot where Blackwell’s body was found along Hanselman Road led investigators to the former officer’s home.
No charges have been filed in the case, Sgt. Cory Hughston with the Victoria County Sheriff’s Office said Monday.
Homicide detective Sam Eyre made the request for the search warrants on March 16, one day after Blackwell’s body in southeastern Victoria County.
The man’s home in the 400 block of Navajo Drive and vehicle, a 2005 Dodge Stratus, were searched on March 17. The man drove his vehicle to the sheriff’s office for the search.
An affidavit for a search warrant for the man’s vehicle outlined the investigation of Blackwell’s death as follows:
On March 14, police officers responded to Blackwell’s home in the 300 block of Laguna Drive in reference to a welfare concern. Blackwell, 53, also worked as a counselor for Jack Greeson Ph.D. and Associates, where she was scheduled to work 8 a.m. that day, but never arrived.
Upon arriving, the police officers contacted Blackwell’s neighbor who said she had “been trying to contact Blackwell but no one came to the door.”
After unsuccessfully attempting to get an answer from the front door, the officers discovered that the door was unlocked. The officers entered the house noting “that the mat in the hallway had been partially flipped over and bunched up.” Blackwell’s keys were on the kitchen table and her vehicle was parked in the garage. One of her two dogs was also shut in the garage. A neighbor said this treatment of the dog was unusual for Blackwell, according to the affidavit.
Unable to locate Blackwell in the home, another neighbor said she had noticed “at around 6:45 a.m. that Blackwell’s storm door was propped open and her outside door mat had been moved a few feet to the driveway.” The neighbor had moved the doormat back to its original position and tried unsuccessfully to call Blackwell by telephone, according to the affidavit.
Due to the circumstances, “Blackwell was then deemed a missing person…who may have been taken against her will,” according to the affidavit.
Items were taken from the home for processing, including clothing, a day planner, computer and personal items and it was discovered that Blackwell had been dating online.
At about 3 a.m. on March 15, the police found Blackwell’s purse, containing her driver’s license, credit card, cash and cell phone, in a vacant field in the 5000 block of Hanselman Road.
One of the detectives was assigned to interview the former member of the sheriff’s office because one of Blackwell’s co-workers indicated Blackwell and the man had dated recently.
According to the affidavit, the man told the detective he and Blackwell had their last date in December. Two weeks later, when the man spoke with Blackwell again, she said she had not called him because she had met someone else.
By about 1:30 p.m. on March 15, a bloodhound from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was sent to Hanselman Road to try to establish a trail left by Blackwell and her abductor, using the scent from some of her clothing. The bloodhound traveled north about 300 or 400 yards and then returned to where the purse had been found.
By 2:45 p.m., the police decided to contact the Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office to use their bloodhounds that had been used successfully before by the Victoria Police Department in a 2003 murder investigation.
At about that time, Blackwell’s body was found in the 6900 block of Hanselman Road. She was lying on her right side a few feet from the road on the other side of a barbed-wire fence. There were broken tree branches around her and scratches on her shoulders and back, indicating she had been thrown there, according to the affidavit. She was wearing a nightgown that partially covered her body and had white nylon rope wrapped around her.
An autopsy found she died by strangulation, officials said.
At 6:30 p.m., two bloodhounds from Fort Bend County Sheriff’s Office arrived and using scent pads from Blackwell’s body and from the rope, the bloodhounds followed the scent of the rope from Blackwell’s body directly to the man’s home and vehicle on Navajo Drive.
After returning to the police department, a bloodhound performed a scent-pad line-up using six scent pads from people of the same sex and race. The bloodhound indicated that the scent from a document the man recently gave to Sheriff T. Michael O’Connor had the same scent as that collected from the crime scene.
The man’s home and vehicle were searched. The results of that search have not yet been disclosed.
Anyone with information about Blackwell’s death is asked to call the Victoria Police Department at 361-572-2744, Victoria County Sheriff’s Office at 575-0651 or Victoria Crime Stoppers at 572-4200.
The family is also offering a $5,000 reward for information that leads to the killer’s conviction.