DNA helps identify slaying suspect
Officials tracked down man on strength of tossed cigarette butt
It was a discarded cigarette butt that led to the arrest of the Baytown man charged with capital murder in a brutal 2016 Mother’s Day stabbing and sexual assault.
Byron Lloyd Collins was collared last week, more than a year and a half after the slaying, but police said Wednesday they still have no idea what motivated the bloody attack on Nataliya Shal.
When authorities picked up the accused killer three days before Christmas, they found him in the same West Baker complex where Shal, the mother of one, was slain a year earlier. Now, he’s in jail with no bail, and prosecutors have not ruled out seeking the death penalty.
“We take these cases very personally simply because we understand how important they are to the victims and their families,” Baytown police Lt. Steve Dorris told reporters. “This is one of those cases where the pieces of the puzzle all kind of fall together.”
A trove of genetic evidence from the scene, a brother with
DNA in the system and timely training on lab techniques all coalesced to net an arrest, authorities said.
Police uncovered the crime May 8, when Shal’s husband, who was out of town, called to request a welfare check after the 50-year-old stopped answering her phone.
Officers who went by the couple’s home that night at the Lakes of Madera Apartments peered through a window and spotted Shal’s lifeless body in a pool of blood.
Not realizing the apartment was unlocked, police kicked in the door and found her with multiple stab wounds in her back, prosecutors later said in court. A DNA hit
For months, though, the investigation stalled. Authorities tested DNA from the scene, but it wasn’t in the system.
In October, a witness surfaced offering a description of a man seen talking with Shal at the complex the day of her death. A sketch artist worked up an image of the man, then identified only as a person of interest and not a suspect.
Crime Stoppers put out a $25,000 reward, but it still failed to turn up any substantial leads. It wasn’t until early 2017 when investigators attended a meeting about Combined DNA Index System — better known as CODIS — that they started making steps toward a breakthrough.
There, they found out about the possibility of using familial DNA testing to help identify suspects not already in police databases.
So in June, investigators sent off evidence in the case for testing — and got a hit. The killer was still unidentified, but police realized his brother was already in prison and had DNA in the system.
“That in and of itself doesn’t really get us anywhere,” Dorris said. “It’s just a tool, something to point us in the right direction to get us started.”
Then, authorities used a process of elimination to figure out which family members could be suspects. In the end, they zeroed in on Collins. Even though his only prior convictions were misdemeanors, he matched the earlier sketch — and sometimes stayed with family at the victim’s apartment complex, Dorris said.
After surveilling the 29-year-old, police picked up a discarded cigarette butt and sent it off to the lab. On Dec. 18, it came back as a match to the crime scene DNA, according to police. Four days later, authorities arrested Collins.
Police questioned him, but “he didn’t just outright confess,” Dorris said. “Why he decided to do what he did, we just don’t know.”
Police and prosecutors met that day and decided to pursue a capital murder charge. ‘Believes in the system’
Afterward, they called Shal’s husband of nine years to give him the news.
“He was extremely grateful, very gracious, very grateful,” Dorris said. “I think he really believes in the system; he believes in the process that we go through in these cases.”
Ruben Perez with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office praised the inter-agency cooperation that led to the arrest.
“The defendant is now behind bars and charged with capital murder, the most serious charge in our criminal justice system,” he said. “We at the district attorney’s office have asked for no bond, and the court system has agreed with us.”
Collins doesn’t appear to have an appointed attorney yet and is due back in court Thursday morning.
Perez wouldn’t speculate on whether the district attorney’s office will seek a death sentence, but he said that a committee of senior prosecutors will make that decision sometime after an indictment.
“Now that we do have his DNA,” Dorris said, “we’ll be interested to see if there’s any other cases he’s linked to.” keri.blakinger@chron.com twitter.com/keribla