Aurora Cold Case Murder Cracked but Far From Resolved

When law enforcement announces that a cold case has been cracked these days, it's typically because newly analyzed DNA evidence has led to an arrest. But that wasn't the case with an October 12 press conference staged jointly by the Aurora Police Department and the 18th Judicial District DA's Office.

Interim Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates, Senior Chief Deputy District Attorney Chris Wilcox and APD detective Jason McDonald revealed that an arrest warrant had been issued for 45-year-old Salvador Hernandez-Morales — the chief suspect since shortly after the 2006 slaying of 42-year-old Francisca Perea-Dominguez  — and then noted that Hernandez-Morales's whereabouts are currently unknown (he's thought to be in Mexico). In essence, then, authorities have used improved technology to confirm what they believed all along, but a man who's been on the lam for more than a decade and a half must be located and extradited before justice can be done.

Nonetheless, Oates, a former chief who's temporarily overseeing the department while Aurora seeks a permanent replacement for Vanessa Wilson, fired earlier this year, celebrated the achievement. "I'm very proud to be standing here," he said. "I remember this horrific crime; in 2006, I was in my first year here. This is an example of the commitment and tenacity of this organization — going after folks who commit horrible crimes no matter how long it takes. I'm very proud of the work of Jason McDonald and his team for their effort and persistence," as well as "the patrol officers who responded that night and their preservation of evidence and the work they did that led to this moment."

The arrest affidavit is unusually long — 32 pages — and includes a series of crime-scene photos and detailed interviews with multiple witnesses, who are also pictured. The narrative notes that Perea-Dominguez's body was found at 12162 East Kansas Drive shortly after 3 p.m. on July 1, 2006. She was lying on the floor of her one-bedroom apartment next to a white towel with blood on it and had a stab wound on her left side, as well as bruises on her right upper arm and neck and contusions and abrasions elsewhere on her body. She was dressed, but an investigator observed that her shorts "were placed on her in a manner that looked as if someone had attempted to place them on her themselves."

An autopsy subsequently determined that Perea-Dominguez had been sexually assaulted.

Perea-Dominguez had gone to a dance club on Morrison Road with a friend the previous evening. The friend, who lived nearby, called her in the morning, and when she didn't answer, his sister went to Perea-Dominguez's apartment and saw her body.
Suspicion was soon cast on Hernandez-Morales, described as Perea-Dominguez's roommate, who went by the nickname "Chabba." He was linked to the crime scene by several documents, including a phone bill and a witness who'd spotted a white Ford Explorer he owned. But while detectives were able to recover clothing that Hernandez-Morales had dropped off with his sister, he evaded capture, likely by returning to his native Mexico. Authorities had stopped him from entering the U.S. in 2003, when the photo at the top right of this post was taken, but he'd successfully gained entry at a later date.

Meanwhile, DNA had been obtained from Perea-Dominguez's body, as well as the towel and her clothing, among other items. But while the tests had eliminated other suspects, they couldn't definitively be linked to Hernandez-Morales.

That changed after McDonald, a cold-case detective, was assigned to take a new look at the incident in July 2021. Using technology that had improved significantly since 2006, APD technicians were able to make a strong match between sperm from the scene and DNA on a white cowboy hat that Hernandez-Morales had left behind.

This information was enough for an arrest warrant to be issued in Hernandez-Morales's name on three charges: first-degree murder after deliberation, felony murder and sexual assault.

At the announcement, McDonald confirmed that Hernandez-Morales was "the person of interest from the beginning," but it was "a matter of confirming it with DNA evidence. Items still needed to be tested, and working with the district attorney's office and the CBI [Colorado Bureau of Investigation] led to the charges."

Hernandez-Morales "is not currently located in the U.S.," Wilcox said, and authorities are now pursuing his arrest and extradition — a less-complicated process than it once was. Mexico doesn't have a death penalty and previously refused to extradite individuals who might face execution in this country. But that ceased being an issue in Colorado as of March 2020, when the state formally abolished capital punishment.

According to Wilcox, "Filing charges is the first step in the process. And we also want people to come forward with any additional information they might have." Such individuals can contact Metro Denver Crime Stoppers at 720-913-STOP (7867).

Arresting, extraditing and convicting Hernandez-Morales is unlikely to happen quickly. Note that nearly seven years passed between the March 2010 murder of Lyndsay Pham at Aurora's Descano Plaza Apartments, which she co-owned and managed, and the 2017 sentencing of Javier Aguirre for the crime, even though police suspected him from the early stages of the investigation. The main reason: Aguirre had fled to Mexico.

Click to read the Salvador Hernandez-Morales arrest affidavit.