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An illegal immigrant has pleaded guilty in a Harris County court to murdering a woman in 2003 and leaving her body in wooded area in Tomball, but the victim’s family is upset about the sentence.

Joel Guadalupe Sanchez, 34, pleaded guilty in Judge Susan Brown’s courtroom Sept. 12, after a plea bargain was reached with Harris County prosecutors. Brown sentenced Sanchez to 10 years behind bars.

Tomball investigators were able to tie Sanchez to the murder of Sandra Williams last year, after a state DNA check received a hit from evidence entered by the Tomball Police Department.

Williams’s body was found by a witness who had been flying a remote control plane around the 900 block of Persimmon. The witness notified Tomball Police.

Williams’s body was savagely beaten and she was tied up. A sledgehammer with her blood was found nearby.

“The body was bound and it appeared there was trauma to the head,” Tomball detective Gary Hammond said. “We recovered DNA off the body.”

After forensic evidence was collected, Hammond tried to find out information about the victim and her connection to Tomball. He hit a brick wall.

“It was very difficult,” he said. “No one could give me a tie to the Tomball area.”

Hammond kept in touch with the victim’s mother Lula Washington and the victim’s daughter Crystal Williams, even as the case grew cold over the years. Both of the family members reside in North Carolina.

“I told (Washington) at the beginning that we would find the person responsible and she reminded me of that every time we talked,” Hammond said.

The case remained cold until 2010, when Hammond received a phone call that a prison inmate, who underwent required DNA testing, had come back as a match to DNA found at the crime scene. That inmate was Joel Sanchez.

Hammond then went to the prison unit where Sanchez was incarcerated and obtained a saliva sample. That DNA test also proved a match.

“He said he didn’t know (the victim),” Hammond recalled. “Saying you don’t know someone isn’t a plausible reason for why their DNA was found on the victims body.”

Another break came when the girlfriend of one of Williams acquaintances said that Sanchez came to their home looking for Williams.

“She said that (Sanchez) came by their house looking for Williams,” Hammond said. “He was really mad because she had taken his car and had not returned it.”

A connection to Tomball was established when Hammond learned that Sanchez had family that lived near the crime scene.

That evidence was enough to pursue charges of murder against Sanchez last May.

Sanchez’ lawyer, Monica Gonzales, said the decision to plead guilty was his alone.

“He pled guilty,” Gonzales said. “The evidence against him was only circumstantial, but it was his choice to plead guilty.”

While Williams’ family is satisfied that their loved one’s killer was caught, they are upset with the Harris County District Attorney’s Office nonetheless.

“At least they got the person that did it,” Washington said. “I thought he should do more years though.”

Both Washington and Williams said no one from the district attorney’s office contacted them to ask about the plea bargain, or to tell them when a court date would be.

“I thought they would call because we planned to be there, but we didn’t hear anything from them,” Washington said. “The only way I found out is because Mr. Hammond called to tell us.”

“I want to know why he killed her,” she added. “Why did he do the things he did to her?”

Williams agreed with her grandmother.

“He didn’t just shoot my mom,” she said. “He brutally murdered her and gets 10 years? It’s not right. They knew that I kept up with the case all these years and they never contacted me.”

 She blames the system for several cracks, including that Sanchez is an illegal immigrant.

“This dude --- this illegal immigrant --- he’s a terrorist too,” she said. “He came here, killed a United States citizen and he will be out by the time I’m 35.”

The district attorney’s office did not return repeated calls for comment before press time.

“I would like to know how he knew my mom and why he did what he did,” Williams said. “My mom has three grandchildren she will never meet.”

A Tomball woman was convicted of Intoxication Manslaughter by a Montgomery County jury, in a rare case involving legal prescription drugs.

Sherri Lorene Holloway, 31, was sentenced to 12 years in state prison following her conviction. The case stemmed from a crash on SH 105 in February of 2011, where Holloway crossed the center line, hitting a white Chevrolet van, killing its driver, Kenneth Buffington. Prosecutors said he was killed almost instantly, due to the force of the crash.

Holloway was seriously injured in the crash and sent by Life Flight to Memorial Hermann Hospital.

Witnesses said Holloway’s vehicle was weaving erratically before the crash, even causing a tractor-trailer to have to leave the roadway to avoid her, so State Trooper Eric Lopez obtained a blood sample from Holloway at the hospital. He was also given a baggie with numerous pills that hospital staff found on her.

Lab results showed that Holloway had a combination of valium, soma and hydrocodone in her system at the time the sample was taken.

After hearing testimony from forensic experts and witnesses to the crash, jurors took less than 10 minutes to convict her of the crime.

During the punishment phase prosecutors were able to enter evidence of another crash involving Holloway, which injured Tomball police officers Cpt. Rick Grassi and Sgt. Rebecca Carlisle.

Prosecutors said that in May of 2010, Holloway hit theTomball police officers in a police vehicle on FM 2978, while they were on their way to a police funeral in Conroe. Both officers were injured in the crash. She was allegedly under the influence of the same drugs when that crash occurred.

The 12-year sentence means that Holloway must serve at least half of that before she is eligible for parole. She will be credited with time served already in the Montgomery County Jail, meaning she will possibly have to serve less than five years in state prison.

A Tomball man was recently sentenced to three years of probation, after pleading guilty to aiding and abetting device fraud in federal court.
Troy Alexander Tipton, 21, was charged, after federal prosecutors said he sold Spring cellular phone customer data and access information to another man. Tipton was an employee of Modern Wireless at the time. Tipton pleaded guilty to the charges last August.
Prosecutors said that Tipton sold data from at least 400 customer accounts to Vernon R. Parker of Houston, from April through October of 2011. Parker then directed Lakreshia Shana Smith, 28 and Frederick Sears, 38, both of Houston, to make claims for replacement or additional cell phones using the stolen accounts.
Sears and Smith were arrested after U.S. Secret Service agents followed them around the Houston area and observed them picking up packages containing the cell phones.
"The conspirators had placed phone and internet orders for either replacement phones, or additional phones to be charged to unknowing customers of Sprint," U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson's office said in a statement. "The packages were mailed from Sprint locations outside of Texas to various hotels and apartments as directed by the conspirators. The total loss to Sprint is estimated at more than $136,000 attributable to the Parker organization."
Smith was given probation by Judge Lee Rosenthal, while Sears was ordered to serve 18 months in federal prison. Parker, the ring leader of the group, was sentenced to 51 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised parole.
Parker will remain in local custody until he is transferred to a federal prison in the near future.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.