Anatomy of Murder - A Pane of Glass (Eveline Aguilar)

Episode Date: June 17, 2025

A ransacked apartment and brutal assault left a young woman dead. One pane of glass would help solve the case- but it would be anything but quick.View source material and photos for this episode at: anatomyofmurder.com/a-pane-of-glassCan’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc

The crime scene was just probably the worst one I've seen, just with the amount of blood and the nature of her injuries. She drowned basically in her own blood. I'm Scott Weinberger, investigative journalist and former deputy sheriff. I'm Anaseega Nicolazzi, former New York City homicide prosecutor and host of Investigation Discoveries, True Conviction. And this is Anatomy of murder. According to data provided by the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, there are currently over 300,000 unsolved homicides in the United States, and with a national clearance rate of just over

50%, that number is increasing by almost 8,000 every year. So just think about that. 8,000 victims whose murders have never been solved, whose families have never had closure, and whose killers have never faced justice. Over the last five years, that clearance rate has been steadily increasing, thanks in large part to huge advances in DNA testing technology

and to a growing number of very dedicated investigators and prosecutors that refuse to give up hope. And one of those prosecutors is someone we've had on the show before. Dominic Leo is the chief trial attorney for the 18th Circuit in Seminole County, Florida, just outside of Orlando. And in 2018, he took on a cold case

that had stumped detectives for over three decades. This was way, way, way back. I might've been in elementary school, I think, when this case happened. The brutal murder of a 38-year-old woman named Eveline Aguilar had occurred in Winter Park, Florida in July of 1986. But despite the collection of forensic and biological evidence

from the crime scene and several people of interest, the answers needed had not yet come in the 32 years since Eveline's death, and Eveline's killer had gone for all those years unidentified and unpunished. The existence of that biological evidence and the prospect of using new DNA technology to help identify a suspect was the impetus for reopening Aveline's cold case. But as Dom told us, there were still some very daunting challenges to

trying to solve a mystery that had gone unsolved for so long. You know, policing standards have changed dramatically over the last 50 solve a mystery that had gone unsolved for so long. You know, policing standards have changed dramatically over the last 50, heck, over the last 10 years. I mean, things are a lot more exacting and scientific and jurors expect a lot more. And a case was done in 86 or 76 or 1996. That doesn't change what the expectations are of jurors in today's climate. But as he would eventually prove, no case is too old or too cold when it comes to seeking justice. So let's go back to Florida in the mid 80s to hear the story of Evelyn Aguilar, who had only recently moved to Winter Park, where she shared a modest apartment with her sister.

Part of Winter Park is very affluent, and part of it is more middle class. This would be in the middle class section of the town. The apartment itself was a couple of bedrooms, back porch, there was a kitchenette, nothing particularly extravagant. Eveline was known by her family and friends as a private person, responsible, and self-reliant.

She was someone who liked familiar routines and was also described by friends as gentle and dependable. But she always had a job, was well-respected, and no criminal record, just a regular, nice, almost 40-year-old woman. But the summer of 1986 was a trying one, and sharing a small apartment even with a sibling

proved to be less than ideal. This was her sister's apartment, and during the course of living with her sister, they had a falling out. Evelyn was in the process of moving back up to the northeast, so the apartment had been partially packed up when all this had happened. Eveline was due to move out in a matter of days, but before she did, tragedy would strike. On the morning of July 14th, 1986, one of Eveline's friends stopped by the apartment and noticed that the front door was left open. Front door was open, if I recall correctly,

about three inches unsecured. The friend entered the apartment calling Eveline's name, but there was no answer. It appeared the apartment had been ransacked and when he entered her bedroom, he realized that it was something much worse. Eveline's body was partially on her bed, half clothed and covered with blood. He retreated quickly from the room and went looking for help, returning a short time later, not with the police, but with two of his close friends that also lived nearby.

I think there were three of them that came back the second time before the police arrived. And when they came back the second time, the three gentlemen decided that they were going to call the police. And then the Sheriff's Office showed up shortly thereafter and started to do the investigation. So already here, obviously, we have so many questions. Like, why is Eveline's friend coming over that early in the morning? And of course, after discovering her body, why would he then not call 911 and instead go out and come back with two friends before calling the police? Now obviously those are questions Anasiga that the police would have also but for now

Let's just go back to the apartment as the first sheriff's deputies arrived at the scene, which was about 7 a.m The first thing that they see is one of the window panes had been removed from the front portion of the apartment that was next to the front door that immediately became suspicious as the primary point of entry. He would have removed one of those panels, which I believe were six inches by six inches square, reached in, put his arm up to the latch inside the window, pulled open the latch of the entire window, and then opened the window up from the outside. So that's how he would have climbed in through the window.

And that right there is interesting because now it seems like it was someone who didn't have a key. And just as Evelyn's friend had noticed, investigators also observed some other clear signs of a break-in too. When they walked in, the next thing they saw was really just the fact that the place was just disarray and had been rummaged through. Couch cushions had been turned up, drawers had been opened up, more so than just, you know, the disarray with regard to moving. Already they must have been thinking, okay, this person was likely the victim of a robbery, they're turned violent, but as soon as they entered the bedroom they knew that this was anything but a typical home invasion. And we want to warn you that the description of Eveline's body

may be triggering for some. When they went into the master bedroom they saw the deceased on the bed. The amount of blood was consistent with her being stabbed multiple times at the head of the bed and then subsequently being dragged down to the bottom. She was found laying on her back with her legs up in the air. Blood splatter was on the wall to the left of the body. Eveline's nightgown had been pushed up over her torso and her underwear had been cut away from her body. The position of her body and where the clothes were located and how they were removed indicated, at least to the investigators and to us

when we were presenting the case, that it was very much a non-consensual sexual encounter and one in which she fought back because she also had a number of defensive wounds on her arms from flailing and trying to get away. There was evidence of multiple stab wounds to her chest, arms and head, but the most severe injury and likely cause of her death was a deep laceration across her neck. Her head was essentially detached. I mean, he had cut so deeply. He had gone all the way down to her spine. Her head was barely attached to her body.

The crime scene was just probably the worst one I've seen. Now, obviously, Scott, any homicide scene like this, right there, that is going to reveal a lot about a potential suspect and bring up potential theories. I think it's almost like you're looking at two different scenes, Anasiga. First, a brutal attack with what appears to be a sharp instrument, which most of the focus was around her head area, and just the way the body was found, partially naked in the area of her bed. And I'll just add plenty of defensive wounds, which in my experience gives every indication

that this was both personal likely and a sexual motive in mind. But then you have the state of her apartment in disarray as described, draws pulled out, furniture knocked over because the appearance looked like the apartment may have been ransacked. Obviously, we're all going to think ding, ding, ding, robbery. And again, when we're coming to sexual assault, and this often also can be a stranger with a deeper, deeper motive.

But when you take both these different theories and these considerations together, the forced entry, the robbery, the positioning of the body, and Evelyn's injuries, investigators started to think that the intruder may not have entered the apartment with the intent to kill and may not have realized anyone was at home when they initially broke into the home. It looked like to us that the initial struggle was not anticipated. In other words, the defendant, I don't believe he knew that she was home, which is why the vast majority of the blood evidence was located up towards the top of the bed.

Presumably jumped on top of that bed real quick once he realized there was movement in there and just started kind of attacking her. But when he did start attacking, he was violent, brutal, and merciless. So regardless whether he entered as a robber, he was also clearly capable of cold-blooded murder. And that wasn't all, because an autopsy would later point to the fact that the sexual assault likely occurred post-mortem, which means after death. Their hope was that there was enough physical evidence

left at the scene that would help identify Eveline's killer, no matter how long it took. In July of 1986, 38-year-old Eveline Aguilar was found stabbed to death in her own bed in an apartment in Winter Park, Florida. The news of her brutal sexual assault and murder was devastating to her family and a terrifying shock to the community, especially among other single female neighbors. It's every woman's nightmare, right? I mean, it's a random home invasion where the victim is brutally sexually battered and murdered.

So yeah, everybody was on edge. The autopsy revealed multiple sharp force injuries consistent with defensive wounds on her head, her neck, her arms, her hands, all indicating that her last minutes alive were spent in a frantic fight for her life. A life that was finally ended by severe bleeding caused by a deep laceration across her neck. There's a number of arteries up in your throat that are responsible for getting blood to your brain. And when he cut into there, he cut into her esophagus and her trachea as well. And the blood spilled from the sliced arteries and went down into her chest cavity. And she drowned basically in her own blood. The incredibly violent nature of this attack leaves no doubt what the perpetrators' intentions

were. Eveline, who was asleep in her own nightgown when the suspect attacked, obviously presented no threat. And evidence of a post-mortem sexual assault is obviously not typical of a home invader that has been surprised by a homeowner and was in some sort of panic to escape. But there does seem to be a disconnect between the murder and the evidence that perhaps robbery was the motive

for entering the apartment in the first place. What was the motive? Was the motive a burglary gone wrong? Or was it that he entered in that apartment with the intent to commit a sexual battery or just to steal stuff? Investigators hope the answers to those questions could be found in the evidence. And luckily, during the autopsy, the medical examiner was able to recover seminal fluid, skin from under Eveline's fingernails, as well as hair that potentially was left behind by the killer.

And I'll also say there was some solid physical evidence left behind at the crime scene as well. There were a bunch of knives that were found in the kitchen, one in the sink, another one on a counter, which obviously they were thinking perhaps it's the murder weapon. Now, if one of those knives proved to be the murder weapon, that would speak to the killer's intentions, right?

It would say that perhaps he didn't enter the apartment with a weapon, but then improvised when he discovered Evelyn in the bedroom. So as you would imagine, the entire apartment was tusseted for fingerprints, which in 1986 was still the most common and effective form of forensic evidence. They located prints on the inside windowsill of that window that I had mentioned earlier where the glass was removed. They also found a palm print on the outside

of the back sliding glass door. So while all those pieces of evidence were being collected and analyzed, the hair, the knives, the palm prints, detectives were also busy trying to piece together a timeline of the day of the murder. The goal there to determine who Evelyn had been in contact with, who she may have had any conflicts with, and even more importantly, who might have been the last person to see her alive. They did a great job in 1986, tracking down what Evelyn had been doing that day and who

she was with. They were able to determine that in the morning she was on her portrait in the book. In the evening around nine o'clock she went to a neighbor's house and watched a movie. So that neighbor was a man who Evelyn had only known for just a few weeks. But upon being questioned with police, he volunteered his cooperation, an alibi and a blood test, all of which helped eliminate him as a suspect. They were able to show through phone records that she had a phone call with her mom and her other sister around, I think it was 11, 1130.

We know that the last time she was seen alive was around 1 a.m. on the 14th. She was at the community pool about 1 o'clock in the morning. So the attack had to have happened between, you know, 1 and 6 a.m. and the fact that she was, you know, in her nightgown and in the bed indicates, at least to us, that when he came in she was in the bed and she wasn't able to ever leave it. No one in the apartment building witnessed anyone entering or leaving Evelyn's apartment between those hours of 1 and 6 a.m. and to ever leave it. No one in the apartment building witnessed anyone entering

or leaving Evelyn's apartment between those hours of one and six a.m. And so police zeroed in on the people Evelyn knew and who she had been in contact with in the days leading up to her murder. Including the three men that had entered the apartment minutes before police arrived at the scene. The first was Lionel Cruz, the friend of Eveline's,

who had discovered her body. And if you remember, that was our obvious question from the top. Why this friend would have been visiting her apartment so early in the morning, and then why he didn't immediately call police. The other person police questioned was one of the men crews returned with before they

did actually call 911. A man named Homer Garcia, who actually admitted to being an ex-boyfriend of Eveline's. Now the fact that these men called 911 and were waiting at the crime scene when police arrived would seem to point to detectives that they were probably not involved in Eveline's murder. But it wouldn't be the first time that a suspect hung around a crime scene to try to deflect suspicion away from themselves,

now would it? I absolutely agree. And I think there was also some suspicion that when these men entered the apartment before calling police, they perhaps, they were the ones that had actually rummaged entered the apartment before calling police, they perhaps, they were the ones that had actually rummaged through the apartment, which possibly could explain the disconnect

between the brutal nature of her murder on a seagull and the rather predictable motive of a simple robbery. And so presumably, their fingerprints may have been left behind at the scene. Homer Garcia and Lionel Cruz, they had all, I believe, had pretty good alibis from what I can recall. And they also volunteered their fingerprints to compare with any found inside the apartment.

They really zeroed in on those fingerprints inside that windowsill, and even the prints weren't, they didn't match either. They were eliminated pretty quickly. But there was still a third man, wasn't there? There was. And he was an acquaintance of Evelyn's named Andrew Heatherington, who lived nearby and had been seen in the apartment.

But what made him most interesting as a potential suspect was that he had a pretty long criminal record. He was a friend of Evelyn's sister, who was in that apartment. And Heatherington was a drug dealer, at least back then. That was the allegation, had a number of drug convictions. And there was some indication that Evelyn's sister might have been friendly with him.

Heatherington was considerably less enthusiastic about cooperating with police, but eventually he did agree to a voluntary interview and even provided his clothing, shoes, blood, and fingerprints to be compared to evidence found at the crime scene. So remember, at this point, DNA was not in the investigator's toolkit, but it was on the horizon. So even when his fingerprints did not match the ones found in the apartment,

investigators still preserved his biological evidence in the hopes that one day science would advance to the point where it may be used to extract usable DNA. But for the time being, Heatherington, as well as more than a dozen other potential suspects were all eliminated one by one based on a combination of alibis, interviews, and fingerprint comparisons. There were about 13 people total. I think the first time DNA was used, at least in Florida, was like 87

for purposes of like getting a conviction. But back then it was mostly fingerprints. And so they had fingerprints off the windowsill. And so they were just comparing those prints to all of the folks that they thought would have been in and out of that apartment, and they just kept coming back empty-handed, empty-handed, empty-handed, and then after that,

the case sort of stopped until the 90s. So you may be asking why the 1990s? That's because DNA testing in criminal investigations was starting to become more mainstream. The nation and its law enforcement agencies had seen its potential in the trial of accused killer, you'll remember O.J. Simpson, and they saw potential to solve the growing, growing backlog of unsolved homicides. And there were two critical pieces of forensic evidence from the Eveline Aguilar homicide

that had been carefully stored and preserved, seminal fluid and hair follicles left behind by her killer. And that's when they got the largest amount of DNA, voluntarily given DNA from, you know, five or six of the primary suspects, including Mr. Heatherington, Mr. Homer Garcia, and all these fellows, and then still nowhere. So many people think of DNA as this magic bullet in homicide investigations because of the exactness of its science. When there is a match, there is almost absolute certainty that you've found your killer. But I gotta say that same science means that when there is not a match with any identified

Suspects there is the same certainty that the identity of the real killer It's important to say is still a mystery But on the flip side, you know at least eliminating folks does give a certain peace of mind to Folks at the sheriff's office and I can't speak for the survivors, but when folks have suspicions that it could be X, Y, or Z as your suspect, and then all of a sudden you have the DNA that says, listen, your gut may tell you that, but the science doesn't. I mean, that's some level of closure. Eliminating the various people of interest in Eveline's case answered some questions,

but it left the prospects of it ever being solved dimming by the day. For years, the evidence remained in storage and her case fault was returned to Florida's growing pile of unsolved homicides. But you know who never stopped working? The scientists. Because over the next 20 years, DNA technology would continue to improve. DNA profiles could be extracted from smaller and smaller biological samples.

Testing times, they got shorter, and they also got less expensive. Then there was the most important improvement of all, the creation of state and national databases of DNA collected from known criminal offenders, which meant the pool of suspects in any unsolved homicide was growing by the day. And one day in May of 2018, database would return a perfect match. In May 2018, 32 years after Eveline Aguilar's murder, the Seminole County Sheriff's Office, which was one of the first to establish a dedicated cold case squad, decided to reopen Eveline's case.

There had been sufficient advancements in DNA technology and they realized that it had not been retested in quite a while. Christine Craig, who's our forensic person over here, suggested that they send it back out to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for testing. Eveline's blood sample was used to create a DNA profile that would be used as a control. In other words, anything found on her body that was not a match to her DNA would be presumed

to belong to her killer. Swabs taken during her autopsy, as well as the unknown hair found on her body, were sent to the lab for retesting. And the hair is interesting because unless the follicle is removed along with the hair or a portion of the follicle, you're not gonna get DNA, generally, from a hair. But in this particular case, they did.

There was enough cells on that hair that they could test that. So it was the semen, suspected semen, and the hair that was found on her body. The DNA from both samples were determined to belong to the same individual, and that profile was then resubmitted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or FDLE, to compare against any DNA samples that may already be in the system. They received a notification from FTLE that there was a match to a contributor in our CODIS DNA database and immediately after that was determined, they looked up the fella and recognized the name because he's been homeless for many, many years.

So the name was not alien to folks here. But he was unknown to this particular investigation. His name was Danny Lynn Emmett and at no time in the 32 years had he been identified as a possible suspect or even interviewed as a potential witness. Danny Emmett was never a suspect. He was never looked at. Emmett had later been a suspect in an assault of a teenage girl and as part of that investigation, had volunteered his DNA to police

and was later eliminated as a suspect. But his DNA, in accordance with Florida state law, had remained in the database. Now, of course, any DNA hit is a huge deal, but it doesn't mean that the case is closed, right? Investigators still had to establish as much other evidence as they could to prove not only was it possible

that Emmett could have been in Evelyn's apartment on the night she was killed, but that he absolutely was beyond any reasonable doubt. And it's so great to have that match, right? But they still had to find him. I mean, it's been over 30 years, and the guy could have moved, he could be dead. I mean, in these situations,

you really never know until you know. The first critical piece of information they learned about Emmett was that in 1986, he in fact lived in Winter Park, just a stone's throw from Evelyn's apartment. At the time when this happened Danny Emmett was 17 years old. He lived across the street in an apartment complex, had dropped out of high school but no one really thought of him or knew of him or

even knew that he existed. The Colt K Squad secured an arrest warrant for the now 50-year-old Emmett in May of 2019 and then set out to try to locate him. He had been a local drifter here. Once they confirmed that that was a match, the sheriff's office requested us to authorize an arrest warrant for his arrest for the homicide. They located him in Tennessee. He was living up there.

Emmett was working as a dishwasher in Knoxville, Tennessee when Tennessee authorities came knocking on his door. When investigator Jennifer Spears from the Seminole County Sheriff's Office asked him to answer a few questions, Emmett went willingly. When was the last time you've been in Seminole County? Been a long time. I've been here for two years.

It was a recorded interview. It was done at a police station up in Tennessee. When she interviewed him, she basically had a picture of Evelyn. And it was a picture that was, you know, obviously appropriate for the time. In other words, it was back from the 80s. We gave him this photograph and had him look at it. There is a picture of Evelyn Aguilar. She went by Eve. I've never seen that one in my life. Ever. Is there another picture? Maybe he recognized her from another picture.

How about that picture? Never seen that one in my life. Ever. Do you recognize this person? Do you know anything about her? Do you have any reason to have been at the apartment complex where all this had happened? And of course you say, no, no, no, I don't know who that is. I never met this person. I've never been to that apartment complex. I've never been to that apartment building.

I've never been in that apartment. But of course the science, it said otherwise. Well, you left your DNA there, but I think you know how you left your DNA there but I think you know how you left your DNA there. How did I leave my DNA there? You left your DNA inside her. No way. Yes. Then he started to backpedal. Well I don't know, I don't really remember. It was such a long time ago and I guess it's possible but I don't know. I don't think so. Right here on the windowsill where you left the knife, there's your palm prints right there. I'm telling you, those are your palm prints right there.

Here's from the backs, you can see what the backs look like of the apartment. That's how you left her. Dang, you're accusing me of this? I wouldn't have did that, there ain't no way. He had been caught in a lie, and now he was on the defensive, which is often right where an investigator and a prosecutor likes a suspect to be.

Sometimes not having a confession is just as good as having one, especially when you have forensic evidence to show that the guy's lying. Danny, I'm telling you, we would not have come all the way up here to bullsh-t on us. We didn't pull your name out of the hat and say, let's pin this murder on him today. It's my DNA. It's your DNA and your palm prints on the window sill climbing into the apartment. 33 years you've probably been waiting for this to get this off your chest. 33 years. I need to see a lawyer if I'm being accused of something like that. Okay, that's your right. Is that what you want? Yeah.

I already had the rest worn in hand, so as soon as he was done speaking, they put the cuffs on him and drove him back to Florida. Anasigo, one of your favorite sayings, evidence rules the day. But often our first impression of someone can also help shape your perception of that person's guilt or of course their innocence. Does this person act like somebody capable of this type of violence? Is this person trustworthy? In this case, after Emmett was transported back to Florida, Dom was surprised to learn

that it was not the first time the two men had met. What struck me as most, I don't know, surprising is the name of the defendant. I'd actually dealt with him before as a victim. I had tried a case with this fellow as the victim of a pretty bad battery case. I think he had his jaw broken. You know, he's sitting in my office and I had no idea he was a murderer while I'm trying to advocate for him as a victim. And I can tell you that scenarios like that happen more often than you might think.

A prosecutor's witnesses and sometimes even victims can one day end up on the other side of our files as a defendant somewhere down the road. And that's exactly what happened here. Emmett was arrested on May 22, 2019 and was held without bond on charges of first degree murder and burglary with an assault. In Florida, you know, there's two types of first degree murder. There's premeditated murder and there's felony murder. And so he's charged alternatively with both.

And then he was also charged with burglary of a dwelling with an assault or battery. So the murder charge is obviously a capital offense. And then the burglary with a battery is a life felony, maximum of life in prison. Two theories, both of which can be true. He was there in the apartment to commit a burglary, which just means that he entered the apartment with the intent to commit a crime inside. You don't remove a panel window to get inside if you don't have a criminal intention. And was then also responsible for the sexual assault, largely proven by DNA from a semen sample recovered from Evelyn's body and his fingerprints in the apartment, along with how Evelyn and her apartment were found, all pointing to the facts. But again, in terms

of presenting a clear narrative for trial, the prosecution just had pieces of a jagged puzzle to present to the jury. Luckily, the prosecution got an unlikely assist from the defendant himself, a jailhouse confession. When he got transported back down here, he was housed in regular population. I've done enough of these now in my career that some of the ones that are particularly twisted,

for some reason, some of these defendants like to discuss their handiwork, for lack of a better word, like, you know, I did this and I did that and this is how I did it. Not long after being put in jail while he was awaiting trial, Emmett did just that, sharing details of Evelyn's murder with other inmates at the jail, details only her killer would know. And most of the time,

we don't have inmates that generally on good conscience want to come up and tell us information. You know, most of the time when we get calls from the jail saying hey, you know, inmate Smith has information on somebody else. Usually it's because they want mitigation or reduction on their sentence or they want something in exchange. These two fellows, two different fellows who came forward were very clear

that they didn't want anything at all in exchange for their testimony. They were just so disgusted by his nonchalant attitude about how he described what he did. They didn't care. They just didn't want him to get out. Both inmates went on to relay to law enforcement exactly what Emmett had told them in jail. He'd said that he had gone over to that apartment complex a number of times previously to get

drugs from an unrelated tenant that he used to hang out in the pool in the common pool area that had seen Miss Aguilar and the fact that the lights were out up there and it was just candles and that he was going to go in there and rob the place. He told one of them that he was just going to go in there and rob it and he wasn't expecting her to be inside. But she was inside, sleeping in her bedroom. He was never in danger, not even at risk of being identified. But he still decided to enter her bedroom where that blood evidence proved the attack took place. According to one of the informants, Emmett described the brutal stabbing and sexual assault as casually as he was ordering just a cup of coffee. The next thing was, okay, well, I mean,

is what they're saying consistent with the physical evidence? And of course it was. And then the last thing is what do they want in exchange? And one of the gentlemen who ended up testifying against Mr. Emmett was facing a long prison sentence on a violation of probation. And so we had all thought, you know, he's gonna want some type of break

on his violation of probation sentence. And he was very adamant. I mean, I think even in the trial, he said that the guy is the embodiment of the boogeyman and a monster, and he doesn't ever need to be out. When Emmett was arrested, he was charged with first degree premeditated murder and burglary with assault or battery.

But he was not charged with sexual assault and the reason why is specific to Florida law. Because of the nature of her wounds and how she was found after the fact, I mean, we could not charge him with the sexual battery because in Florida you can't commit sexual battery on a deceased person. And so we weren't able to establish whether she was alive or dead when he had committed the sexual battery. Typically, the capital murder charge would have made this a death sentence eligible case.

But there was actually another legal twist to Emmett's trial, and it had to do with the mandatory sentencing guidelines. What made it interesting from a legal perspective was, since he committed the crime as a juvenile and wasn't caught until he was well into his 50s, we had to do a sentencing hearing as though he was a juvenile. He couldn caught until he was well into his 50s. We had to do a sentencing hearing as though he was a juvenile. You know, he couldn't get the

death penalty because it's unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile to the death penalty. So it was never a death penalty. And also because the crime happened in 86, we have to go back and apply the sentencing standards back in 86. Juvenile sentencing laws are meant to allow a reasonable amount of time after incarceration for rehabilitation, a standard that just didn't seem fair for a killer that had been living free for three decades. If I recall correctly, he was five days shy of his 18th birthday when he committed the crime.

At trial, prosecutors presented the DNA and fingerprint evidence, the physical crimes in documentation and detailed testimony from both jailhouse witnesses. But as with any cold case, there were some serious challenges still to overcome because not only does a prosecutor have to present evidence, but they have to present witnesses, typically the investigators in the case to testify how and when this evidence was collected. And a 32-year delay can present obvious challenges. We're real particular, especially with regard to cold case prosecutions, because you went into a lot of different problems.

I mean, the primary one, of course, is the Sixth Amendment. I mean, you know, when an accused can't address those that are confronting him, it certainly makes it a difficult process for purposes of admissible evidence. So we have to have witnesses that are able to authenticate all the various things. And oftentimes, you know, I know there's been a couple throughout the years where they sort of figured out who the perpetrator was but there just isn't anyone left That's alive that can you know put all the pieces together in other words without someone from the original investigation Testify about the discovery and collection of the evidence the prosecution might not be able to prove their case

The original medical examiner had passed away the original evidence prove their case. The original medical examiner had passed away. The original evidence techs had passed away. We had one investigator who testified and carried the day. He showed up on scene with the primary investigators. He happened to be present at the autopsy. He happened to be present when they swabbed her body for, you know, seminal fluid and found the hairs.

It just was a stroke of luck. And frankly, without him, that was gonna be a real problem. As for Emmett's defense, they argued that the defendant had no recollection of being inside Evelyn's apartment, and that investigators had never identified a murder weapon that they could tie to Emmett.

You know, we never found a murder weapon. He told one of the inmates that he had buried it. It was a four inch, I believe he said it was a four inch buck knife blade. That after this had happened, he had buried it somewhere in the woods. And we never obviously found it. The knives that were on scene,

they were all tested and negative for blood. But the bulk of the defense relied on attempts to discredit the credibility of the inmates' testimony. But Dom emphasized how both inmates had not only independently approached law enforcement with what Emmett had confessed, neither had asked for anything in return. This sheer violence of the crime scene and the behavior, I don't normally get choked up when I'm doing closing presentments,

but on this one I did a little bit just because it was just so awful. And I felt so bad for Evelyn and for her family. The jury deliberated for less than an hour. It was pretty quick and they came back guilty on both the first degree murder charge and the burglary with an assault or battery charge. In June of 2023, Danny Emmett was found guilty of murdering Eveline Aguilar.

And despite being sentenced under juvenile guidelines from 1986, he received a just punishment. He was sentenced as to count one, that would be the murder charge, life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. And as to count two, the other life felony, he was sentenced to life in prison on that charge with a review hearing at 20 years. Meaning the earliest he will ever be released from prison will be 2048, when he will be 79 years old. Ebeline's family attended every day of the trial and her sister gave a powerful impact statement following that guilty verdict. A statement in which she expressed relief that justice had finally been served

after 37 years and expressed one thing her sister's killer proved to be incapable of, mercy. It never ceases to amaze me, you know, folks that have these awful things happen to them. So often you'll see these family members, or even like victims, do some act of kindness or say that they forgive. As I recall, Donna, Elliot, that's her name, gave the defendant a Bible at the sentencing hearing and said, you know, this is for you. I hope you find some meaning behind it and in it.

Cases like this can have an obvious, profound effect on families, but also on law enforcement and on the lawyers as well. It is a shared experience, at least to some degree, a shared trauma. But the knowledge that you are advocating for the victim, working to get them the justice that the criminal justice system can hopefully bring, and that you are honoring their legacy is often what makes it all worthwhile. I hate to give the cliché answers, but sometimes those are the best ones. I mean, listen, the hours are long, the money's not great, but the work is rewarding, especially

in a case like this. When you get a verdict for good people that are just trying to live their life and you finally they have some awful thing that happens to them and their family and then you finally are able to bring them closure, that's probably the best part of the job. I'm left sitting with the cruel truth of Eveline Aguilar's murder, a tragedy that feels almost impossible to reconcile. She didn't know her killer, she didn't cross a line, take a risk, or make a fatal mistake. She was simply seen by a stranger who decided her life was his to take. Cold and in that reality we're reminded of something

deeply unsettling. Sometimes evil doesn't come with warning signs. Sometimes it finds you when you've done absolutely nothing wrong. So how do we make sense of that? Maybe we don't, but what can we do? What must we do is to continue to say Eveline Aguilar's name, honor the life she lived, and refuse to let her memory be reduced to the violent act that took her life. Eveline Aguilar waited 32 years to receive justice, but the amount of time that passed speaks to the perseverance

by the investigators and prosecutors who worked this case. Homicide files don't close until they are solved, even when it takes decades to do. The end of Eveline's life was unbelievably brutal and tragic, but let's remember her for the 38 years of life that she lived as a friend, a sister, who was cared for and loved, and now still undoubtedly missed by many.

["ANATOMY OF MURDER"] Tune in next week for another new episode of Anatomy of Murder. Anatomy of Murder is an AudioChuck original produced and created by Weinberger Media and Frasetti Media. Ashley Flowers is executive producer. This episode was written and produced by Walker-Lamond, researched by Kate Cooper, edited by Ali Sirwa and Philjohn Grande. So, what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?

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