PUEBLO — A team of cold-case investigators used modern forensics and found new evidence to bring first-degree murder charges Monday against a suspect in a 1982 murder, the Police Department announced Monday afternoon.
Thomas Ray Cortinas, 58, was the prime suspect in the stabbing death of Cheryl Valdez, 24, but a court threw out his statements, citing coercive interview tactics, police said.
Detectives got information from Cortinas’ wife at the time, but those statements also were ruled to be inadmissable.
In the re-examination of the case, forensics found blood and hair fiber on a pocket knife and towel found in Cortinas’ home, and investigators learned Valdez owed Cortinas money from a drug deal, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by the Pueblo Chieftain newspaper. Cortinas was arrested in Tennessee and is awaiting extradition.
