Detective says: ‘I was duped’ by De La Cruz
Officers testify they missed red flags, had thought wife ran away.
Austin police investigators say they believed Julie Ann Gonzalez had run away, spurring them to miss red flags in their conversations with her estranged husband and in their documentation of potential evidence.
Testifying before jurors this week in the murder trial of George De La Cruz, officers said they initially thought he could help them find her and did not treat him as a suspect. They did not take photographs of minor scratches one of them noticed on his nose.
Officers also didn’t examine Gonzalez’s gold Chevrolet Impala or swipe it for forensic evidence after her family found the car abandoned at a South Austin Walgreens less than a mile from De La Cruz’s home. And weeks went by before police revisited his backyard, where one detective said he saw a suspicious trench in a large shed.
Prosecutors seek to prove that De La Cruz, now 27, killed his wife and led authorities astray by sending messages and updates to her friends and relatives from her phone and social media accounts.
But his defense lawyers say the state does not have enough to meet its burden of proof. Her body has not been found. Authorities have no murder weapon or forensic evidence and do not know where or how she died.
Detec tive James Scott testifified Thursday that he underestimated De La Cruz, who was the last person to see Gonzalez alive on March 26, 2010. “Personally, I was duped,” said the detective, who worked in the missing persons division.
Prosecutors also played two recorded interviews with De La Cruz in which he denied having killed Gonzalez and described a strained relationship between his estranged wife and her mother.
In April 2010, De La Cruz suggested Gonzalez’s mother could have been the reason his wife left town and said he believed her family and friends knew “something that they don’t want to share.” He told detectives that Gon- zalez had been “acting weird,” looked unfocused and was possibly on drugs when she asked him to watch their daughter, Layla, for the weekend.
“I’ll be honest with you,” an investigator told him. “Julie’s mom thinks you killed her. I have to ask, did you?”
“No,” De La Cruz responded, letting out a small chuckle. “I have a daughter. I wouldn’t do that.”
Through their search, they discovered De La Cruz used his estranged wife’s credit card on the day she went missing at a Wal-Mart, McDonald’s and H-E-B store near his home. Surveillance video captured him pushing a shopping cart inside the WalMart with Layla inside. An itemized receipt showed he bought baby items and a video game, investigators said.
In cross-examination, defense lawyers pointed to their client’s willingness to cooperate and provide information.
They said offifficers had found no blood, weapons or other evidence of a crime scene at his home and implied Gonzalez’s family pushed investigators to focus their attention on De La Cruz.