Real Murder Case Twists Rival CSI

Aug. 12, 2006, 12:41AM
Murder case's twist could rival anything on 'CSI'
Stakeout leads to break in March abduction, slaying in Victoria County


By TERRI LANGFORD
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

For months, Victoria County Sheriff T. Michael O'Connor urged residents to stop using television crime shows to rate his department's investigation into the abduction-slaying of a Texas Department of Child Protective Services supervisor.

"We're all attuned to TV shows where the results are back in an hour," O'Connor said in June when asked about detectives' progress in their search for the killer of Sally Ann Blackwell, whose strangled body was found on March 15 in a pasture.

Real life doesn't operate that way, he insisted. Maybe not.

But after months of waiting for an arrest, one came this week that stunned Blackwell's family and friends into silence, besting any twist an episode of CSI could offer.

After the case appeared at a standstill for months, a break came this week ?- just like on TV ?- with the help of science and an old-fashioned police stakeout. A call to O'Connor was not returned Friday.

However, an affidavit released by the Victoria County District Clerk's office on Friday laid out exactly how O'Connor and his detectives, along with those at the Victoria Police Department, Texas Rangers and the Texas Department of Public Safety's Crime Lab in Austin, came to zero in on Jeffrey Frank Grimsinger, the 23-year-old son of Blackwell's longtime boyfriend.

In March, detectives collected more than 300 pieces of evidence from Blackwell's home and the pasture where her body was found. The evidence was sent to the DPS crime lab, first in Corpus Christi, then to Austin.

In the meantime, investigators confirmed that two men were "persons of interest" in the case.

One was a former Victoria County sheriff's deputy, Capt. Michael Buchanek, who once dated Blackwell. Bloodhounds even tracked scents from Blackwell's corpse to his driveway.

The other was Blackwell's boyfriend, Michael Grimsinger.

Four months later, still no arrest. On July 27, a DPS forensic scientist informed Victoria County officials that DNA found under Blackwell's fingernails had been identified. So was the saliva from a cigarette found under Blackwell's body. The DNA from both the fingernail scrapings and the cigarette were the same person.

Detectives then began to zero in on Jeffrey Grimsinger. The affidavit does not explain why.

Four days after the DNA profile was established, on July 31, Victoria County detectives and a Texas Ranger set up surveillance of the Grimsinger home. When Jeffrey Grimsinger left the house in a pickup, they followed. And when Grimsinger threw a lit cigarette into the street, the detectives scooped it up and bagged it for testing.

On Tuesday, DPS crime lab officials contacted Victoria County. The DNA from Grimsinger's discarded cigarette matched that found in the fingernail scrapings and cigarette at the crime scene.

In a news release late Friday, O'Connor's office indicated the case may not be closed.