Colton Pitonyak

Case record: Colton Pitonyak

Status / legal outcome

Colton Pitonyak was convicted of murder and was sentenced to 55 years in prison on January 29, 2007. On that same day, the jury panel recommended a 55 year prison sentence, and the judge immediately imposed that sentence. Pitonyak was described as being eligible for parole when half of his sentence was served, when he would be age 51.

The offence

Jennifer Rae Cave was murdered in the West Campus area of Austin, Texas. Cave’s body was discovered on August 18, 2005. Cave was killed in Colton Pitonyak’s apartment at the Orange Tree Condominiums, at 2529 Rio Grande Street in West Campus, Austin, Texas.

At the time of discovery, Cave’s body had been partially dismembered and had many stab wounds. A hacksaw had been placed on her abdomen. After her death, she had been shot in the head once, and she had been shot in the chest after a bullet traveled into the chest and through the heart, killing her instantly. An autopsy later determined that she had been killed by a bullet that struck her right arm and torso. She also had stab wounds to her chest.

Toxicology tests concluded that during her death Cave had alcohol, marijuana, and methamphetamines in her system.

Victim

Jennifer Rae Cave originated from Corpus Christi, Texas. She was one of five girls in her family. She attended school in Bishop, Texas before moving to Corpus Christi in 2000. In 2002, she graduated from Mary Carroll High School in Corpus Christi. In August 2002, she traveled to San Marcos, Texas to attend Texas State University (previously Southwest Texas State University) as a finance major. She dropped out after one semester and worked at a restaurant in Austin, Texas, while briefly attending Austin Community College, Riverside Campus. She sometimes used recreational drugs. Before her murder, she began to work for a law firm as a legal assistant.

Cave was 21 at the time of her murder.

Perpetrator and accomplice

Colton Aaron Pitonyak was a finance major at the University of Texas at Austin. He originated from Bryant, Arkansas in Greater Little Rock. Prior to coming to Austin, Pitonyak attended Christ the King School and Catholic High School for Boys in Little Rock, Arkansas. He was described as a National Merit Scholar, and in the year 2000 he was one of seven senior finalists at his high school and one of 166 senior finalists in the state. He had high grades and earned a scholarship to attend UT Austin. He was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity.

Authorities said that Cave and Pitonyak had no previous discord prior to the murder. Pitonyak had no previous record of violent crime.

Pitonyak had entered a rehabilitation program for drugs. In 2004, police found cocaine, prescription sleeping pills unlawfully obtained, and anxiety medication in his apartment, and he was arrested for possession of illegal drugs. His lawyer later acknowledged that he remained “up to his eyebrows” in drugs.

Laura Ashley Hall was a University of Texas at Austin student who had once been Pitonyak’s girlfriend. Authorities indicated that Hall helped by driving Pitonyak using her automobile. Prior to Hall’s re-imprisonment beginning in 2010, she lived in the area around Bandera, Texas with her parents. She had plans to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) so she could become a lawyer.

Investigation

On August 16, 2005, Cave and Pitonyak went to Sixth Street in Downtown Austin to celebrate Cave’s new job. They went to dinner before Cave was murdered.

On the morning of August 17, 2005, the law firm where Cave worked called Cave’s family to say that she did not show up for work. Sharon Sedwick, Cave’s mother, and Jim Sedwick, her stepfather, discovered that Cave had been with Colton Pitonyak. Pitonyak told Sedwick that Cave was not around and asked them to leave him alone.

On August 18, the Sedwicks traveled to Austin and found Cave’s car at Pitonyak’s apartment. Jim Sedwick called 9-1-1. The police said they could not search the apartment without a warrant. Jim Sedwick broke into the apartment after the police departed. After he discovered Jennifer Cave’s body, Jim Sedwick called 9-1-1 again.

Jim Sedwick said outside court that there was only a two-and-a-half-year functional difference between the jury’s sentence and the life term, and in Texas those sentenced to life were eligible for parole in 30 years.

Investigators summoned to the scene found a knife and a machete, both marked with blood, in the apartment. There was one bullet shell under her body and another on the coffee table in the living room.

Detectives traced the hacksaw to a hardware store. Police found a tape of Pitonyak strolling the aisles on August 17, after Cave’s death. An employee told police that Pitonyak had smelled strongly of alcohol. The store owner said that when he asked why Pitonyak needed the saw, he replied that he wanted to “cut up a turkey.” The store owner also said Pitonyak purchased ammonia, towels, carpet cleaner, large plastic bags, gloves, a face mask, and odor eliminator.

Using signals from his cellphone, police determined that Pitonyak had crossed into Mexico.

A surveillance and border-related element included an image of Hall’s green Cadillac crossing into Mexico on August 18 at 2:41 a.m.

Homicide detectives interviewed a hotel clerk who said the couple had asked questions about Mexico’s extradition policy and how they might sell the car to make some quick cash. The clerk was Pedro Fernandez, and he told officers: “White people don’t want to go back to their country? What's going on?”

The same day as Pitonyak’s arrest, a friend of Hall phoned police and said that she was bragging about having helped Pitonyak. The friend was Said Aziz, and Aziz told authorities that Hall said she was desperately in love with him, to the point of seeing them as “Bonnie and Clyde,” and believed that with her assistance, he might “walk” from the charges. Aziz said: “She told him that she wanted to protect Colton and that she wanted to help him,” according to a police report. When Aziz expressed shock about assisting an “axe-murderer,” Hall replied that the death was “an accident” and said: “There is a big difference between manslaughter and first-degree murder.”

A detective later wrote about an interview with Michael Rodriguez about events prior to discovery. The detective wrote that Rodriguez stated Jennifer told him that Colton was very upset that he had lost his cell telephone and that she was going to help him find it, and that Rodriguez asked Jennifer if she was okay and she told him she was and would call him back. The narrative included that Cave never called her back.

Authorities also learned that Loren Hall contacted police. Loren Hall told investigators that four days after the killing, she e-mailed him and asked to remove everything from her apartment, and he suspected she might be with Pitonyak.

Police filed a murder charge against Pitonyak and began searching for him.

Arrest / flight

Authorities found that Pitonyak and Hall escaped from the United States using Hall’s automobile. They crossed into Mexico on August 18, 2005 and were in Mexico for five days.

A Mexican SWAT team discovered Pitonyak and Hall in a Holiday Inn in Piedras Negras, a city on the Mexico-United States border across from Eagle Pass, Texas, on August 23, 2005. The Mexican law enforcement drove them to the Mexico-United States border. At the border, U.S. Marshals arrested Pitonyak. Hall was allowed to leave by herself.

Trial

Pitonyak was charged with murder on August 23, 2005. Hall was arrested in September 2005. On January 29, 2007, Pitonyak, then 24, was convicted of murder.

During sentencing, when asked by Judge Wilford Flowers if he had anything to say before sentencing, Pitonyak bowed his head and said quietly: “I want to apologize to everyone here.”

The judge’s ruling in advance of closing arguments prevented the jury from considering lesser charges of manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide as alternatives to a murder conviction. Pitonyak’s attorneys had sought to convince the jurors that those lesser charges, which do not require a specific intent to do harm, were more appropriate.

In her summation, prosecutor Stephanie McFarland told jurors they had only to look at the treatment of Cave’s dead body for evidence of his state of mind toward her. She said:

“He sawed her head off. He sawed her hands off. He stabbed her in the face. He stabbed her in the chest,”
and further: “If they mutilate the person's body, it tells you a lot about their intent toward that person.”

Another prosecutor, Bill Bishop, ridiculed Pitonyak’s testimony that it was Laura Hall who took the lead in a botched attempt to cut up and dispose of Cave’s body. Bishop said:

“She managed to do it without leaving any DNA. She's an absolute genius,”

Pitonyak’s defense was described as arguing that he may have accidentally discharged his 9 mm gun while trying to clear a round from the chamber. Defense attorney Sam Bassett took pains to tell the jury he personally found the treatment of Cave’s body disgusting. Bassett turned toward the defense table and said:

“Colton, that conduct is inexcusable.” He added: “But, he added, that 'repulsive behavior ... does not answer the question, 'Did he mean to kill his friend?'”

The jury was described as composed of seven men and five women, and deliberated for just an hour and 25 minutes before returning a guilty verdict. During jury selection, Pitonyak’s defense lawyer Roy Minton indicated that Pitonyak and Cave were “the best of friends.” Minton also planned to ask the judge to allow jurors to consider manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide.

Cave’s mother, Sharon Cave, testified in both phases of the trial.

As the foreman pronounced the word “guilty,” a cry of joy rose up from the gallery, where the victim’s mother, siblings and 20 other friends and relatives were seated. Cave’s ex-boyfriend, Scott Engle, clapped twice and thrust his fists in the air. Pitonyak remained expressionless and calmly sipped water from a Styrofoam cup.

Sentencing

A separate penalty phase occurred after conviction. Sharon Cave brought many of her supporters to tears as she recounted the effects of Cave’s murder and said: “I take antidepressants now. Sleep is a hard thing to come by,” and: “Jennifer was everybody's favorite,” prompting sighs and laughs from her sisters, brother and other relatives.

Pitonyak’s mother, Bridgett, testified through tears and said:

“I believe with everything that I am that Colton could not and would not have harmed his best friend in the world,”

During his testimony last week, Pitonyak called Cave “my best friend” and said he was in an alcohol and Xanax-induced blackout that left him with no memory of firing a bullet into her chest.

Defense attorney Roy Minton asked jurors to sentence Pitonyak to no more than 20 years in prison and said:

“This boy is salvageable,”

Prosecutors asked for a life sentence. Under state law, the jury could have sentenced him to as short a term as probation and as long a term as 99 years. The jury returned with the 55-year recommendation after two hours of deliberations, and the judge imposed the sentence immediately.

Outside court, Jim Sedwick noted the functional difference between the jury’s sentence and life eligibility, stating that in Texas those sentenced to life were eligible for parole in 30 years.

Appeals

As of 2009, the case continued to make headlines in newspapers as the appeals process occurred.

Other legal proceedings involving Laura Hall

In 2007, Hall was convicted of tampering with evidence and hindering the apprehension of Pitonyak. The former charge was tied to the dismemberment of Cave’s body. Hall was sentenced to five years for tampering and one year for hindering apprehension, with the sentences to be served concurrently.

On February 19, 2009, the Texas Third Court of Appeals canceled Hall’s sentence. The court stated that her sentencing hearing was not fair. Hall was released on bond.

In 2010, a jury in Travis County, Texas sentenced Hall to the maximum possible sentence, including prison and $14,000 in fines. The sentences, to be done concurrently, included ten years for tampering with evidence and one year for hindering apprehension. Hall received credit for two years she had already spent in confinement prior to the sentencing. On Monday February 8, 2010, Hall was placed in county custody prior to her new sentencing hearing. On August 3, 2010, Hall was taken into the custody of the state prison system, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), and was initially assigned to the Plane State Jail. On October 28, 2011, the state denied parole to Laura Hall, and she became eligible again in November 2012.

Aftermath and legacy

A prosecutor in Travis County, Texas government, Bill Bishop, described the murder and its post-murder behavior, saying:

“As far as murders go, this is a very clean murder. He shot her through the arm, bullet traveled into the chest, through the heart pretty much killing her instantly. It was the post-murder behavior that made it so grotesque. The mutilation was anger… it wasn't any effort to hide the body or get rid of the body. It was just playing with it, like it was toy.”

Legacy included that Cave’s visitation was held at the Seaside Funeral Home on Monday August 22, 2005 and the funeral was held at the All Saints Episcopal Church on Tuesday August 23. Cave was buried in a private ceremony.

Kathryn Casey wrote the book A Descent into Hell: The True Story of an Altar Boy, a Cheerleader, and a Twisted Texas Murder about the crime. HarperCollins Publishers published the book.

Incarceration status (as described)

As of 2013, Colton Pitonyak (TDCJ#01413729 and State ID (SID)#07004898) was incarcerated in the Robertson Unit. As of 2013, Laura Hall (TDCJ#01654372 and SID#07572662) was incarcerated in the Hobby Unit.

People and statements (quotes preserved)

Bill Bishop

Pitonyak at sentencing

“I want to apologize to everyone here.”

Stephanie McFarland

Bill Bishop

Sam Bassett

“repulsive behavior ... does not answer the question, 'Did he mean to kill his friend?'”

Roy Minton

Sharon Cave (statements during penalty phase narrative)

“I take antidepressants now. Sleep is a hard thing to come by,”

“Jennifer was everybody's favorite,”

Pitonyak’s mother, Bridgett

Defense/relationships statement by Roy Minton during jury selection narrative

“the best of friends”

Jim Sedwick

Jim Sedwick noted: there was only a two-and-a-half-year functional difference between the jury's sentence and the life term, and in Texas those sentenced to life were eligible for parole in 30 years.

Pedro Fernandez (hotel clerk)

“White people don't want to go back to their country? What's going on?”

Said Aziz (as relayed by Aziz)

“She told him that she wanted to protect Colton and that she wanted to help him,”

Hall also said:

“Bonnie and Clyde,”

Hall believed he might:

“walk” from the charges.

Hall replied about intent:

“an accident”

“There is a big difference between manslaughter and first-degree murder.”

Store owner (hardware store)

“cut up a turkey.”