Texas Court Rejects Appeal In Dismemberment Case

Woman's body found in bathtub with head, hands cut off

The state's highest criminal appeals court has rejected a petition from a former University of Texas student convicted of killing a 21-year-old woman whose body was found in a bathtub with her head and hands cut off.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals denied Colton Pitonyak's petition for review without comment Wednesday. His lawyers had argued that the police search warrant was invalid because it was based on criminal trespassing by the boyfriend of the victim's mother.

After police declined to forcibly enter the building, the boyfriend broke into Pitonyak's apartment and discovered Jennifer Cave's body in the bathtub, her head and hands in a bag on the floor. Cave, 21, had been missing for two days.

Pitonyak was sentenced to 55 years in prison for the 2005 murder.

"This is strictly a matter of state law interpretation," said Joe Turner, one of Pitonyak's lawyers, in a story in the Austin American-Statesman. "And if the court refuses to hear it, then that decision is final."

Cave's mother, Sharon Cave, celebrated the ruling in an e-mail to the newspaper.

"YEA!," she wrote. "Now if we can just get past Laura (Hall)."

Hall is appealing her five-year sentence for evidence tampering in the case. Prosecutors argued that Hall, a friend of Pitonyak's, helped dismember Cave's body.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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