FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

DNA Confirms – Court Affirms

San Antonio, Texas: September 1, 2010

On October 15, 2006, 23-year-old Magdalena “Maggie” Martinez Battiste, a single mother of four, was brutally murdered. Her nude body was found in the parking lot of a warehouse building near San Pedro & Blanco Road. She was stabbed multiple times in the chest and back, her throat slashed, & was either run over by a vehicle or dragged on the asphalt pavement due to a linear pattern of blunt force trauma to her entire body. She was doused with gas & burned on her head, face & body. Gerardo Gutierrez, then age 32, became a suspect in the case when his DNA profile matched the DNA profile developed from a freshly used condom found 48 feet away from Maggie’s body. A DNA match was made after another crime lab contacted Bexar County’s lab indicating that the profile developed from the condom matched a person by the name of Gerardo Gutierrez. SAPD located Gutierrez in San Antonio and obtained a buccal swab. Retesting with the swab confirmed the match. When speaking with police, Gutierrez made a number of unusual voluntary comments and later, when taken into custody, gave a false alibi.

After a jury trial held in August of 2009, on September 14, 2009, 399th District Court Judge Juanita Vasquez-Gardner sentenced Gutierrez to life in prison.

The Fourth Court of Appeals agreed with the State that the evidence was sufficient to support Gutierrez’s conviction due to the cumulative force of the DNA evidence linking Gutierrez to the murder scene, Gutierrez’s false alibi, and his unusual voluntary comments to the police, along with the reasonable inferences from such evidence.

The opinion can be found here:
http://www.4thcoa.courts.state.tx.us/opinions/htmlopinion.asp?OpinionId=23278

For more information, contact Cliff Herberg, First Assistant District Attorney at 335-2342.