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Trial For UT Student Accused Of Murdering Woman To Start
POSTED: 9:21 am CST January 22, 2007
UPDATED: 10:01 am CST January 22, 2007
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AUSTIN, Texas -- The judge presiding over the case of a University of Texas student accused of killing and mutilating a 21-year-old woman summoned a surplus of potential jurors to help offset pretrial publicity.
Colton Pitonyak is accused of killing Jennifer Cave in August 2005, leaving her partially dismembered body in his campus-area apartment and then fleeing to Mexico.
State District Judge Wilford Flowers summoned 88 potential jurors, about 30 more than usual, for Monday's jury selection out of concern that some in the jury pool would already have opinions about the case.
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Pitonyak, a Little Rock, Ark., native who was studying finance, could face life in prison if convicted. Defense lawyer Sam Bassett said the 24-year-old has declared his innocence.
Cave, a Corpus Christi native, told her mother on Aug. 16, 2005, that she'd gotten a new job as a legal secretary and was going to dinner that night with a man named Colton, according to Pitonyak's arrest warrant affidavit. The law firm called her mother the next day and said Cave hadn't shown up for work.
Cave's mother, Sharon Cave, filed a missing person report after her daughter's roommate said she'd never come home from her outing with Pitonyak, the affidavit says. A friend of Jennifer Cave's told police she called him early in the morning of Aug. 17 and said Pitonyak was upset about losing his cell phone and she was going to help him find it. No one heard from her again.
Police found Cave's car parked at Pitonyak's complex, but no one answered the door at his apartment.
After police said they couldn't break down the door, Sharon Cave's boyfriend entered the apartment through a window and found her body in the bathtub, the affidavit said.
An autopsy determined that Cave died from a gunshot to the right arm and torso and was shot in the head after her death. Her head and hands were severed. She had methamphetamine, marijuana and alcohol in her body when she died, the report said.
Pitonyak was arrested near the U.S.-Mexico border five days after Cave's body was found. He had fled to Piedras Negras, Mexico, with a female acquaintance.
Sharon Cave said her daughter was a loving girl and possibly was "unable to understand that someone would ever harm her."
"We just are very hopeful that the justice system will play out like it should," Sharon Cave said.
Opening statements in the case are expected Tuesday morning.
Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
