Bloody Shoe Links Jailed Suspect To Dallas Stabbing Murder
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Officials with the Dallas Police Department now consider an open murder case solved -- this after linking the crime to two men already in custody for an unrelated robbery.
Martin Coronado was stabbed to death on September 16. Coronado was a husband and father who was killed as he picked his daughter up to take her to school.
According to Coronados' family, blood on a tennis shoe linked 18-year-old Jeremy Francis to the crime.
"He took something that is worth so much; I can't compare anything," said Coronado's sister, Rosemary Segura.
Tuesday the family huddled together at their mother's home in Oak Cliff.
Family members told CBS 11 News they'd spent two agonizing months wondering what happened.
"I felt that we finally had some answers, that at least we had some direction to go," said the victim's brother, Joe Perez. "At first we didn't have direction and we didn't know if they [police] were ever going to find someone. We were completely in the dark. We didn't know what was going on."
Another brother, Paul Coronado, said Martin's murder has shaken the family. "It's hard. It's not the same. A piece of a puzzle has been taken."
Now the Coronado family wants a speedy trial and justice. "Get in on as soon as possible," urged Martin's brother, David Coronado.
Paul Coronado wants Francis punished but is not in favor of the death penalty. "I would rather for him to do life [in prison] and serve the rest of his life 'cause death is just the easy way out," he said.
Francis and his uncle, William Langrum, were originally arrested five days after Coronado's death. Police say the pair was taken into custody while trying to rob another person in the Oak Lawn area. A knife found during that arrest tied the men to another Dallas murder, that of Shearl Bennett on September 21.
Bennett was murdered as she walked from her car to her condominium after returning home from bible study and choir practice at Pilgrim West Baptist Church.
Langrum has been charged with capital murder for the death of Shearl Bennett. Francis faces an aggravated robbery charge related to that case.
