SAN ANGELO, Texas — UPDATE (12:14 p.m. March 6): Mugshot of suspect in Dovie Dykes cold case from the Denton County Jail.
Jail records show Adolph Gonzales of Lewisville was booked March 4 for the charge of murder with bond set at $500,000.
ORIGINAL STORY: San Angelo Police Chief Frank Carter announced Tuesday morning that an arrest has been made in the cold case of 83-year-old Dovie Dykes.
Dykes was sexually assaulted and killed in 1986. Carter announced Tuesday, with Dykes' family members, Charles Guess, Arielle Brinistool and Pam Guess, present that Adolph Gonzales, 61, has been arrested in the case.
According to an SAPD press release regarding the cold case, at approximately 9:27 a.m. July 11, 1986, SAPD officers were dispatched to 1026 Culberson Street regarding a dead person. A family member reported to the department that they had discovered Dykes' body inside the residence.
The family member also reported that Dykes had recently expressed a concern for her safety and that she felt a man in the neighborhood was going to “get her or rape her”, the release said. Dykes had lived alone for many years.
A subsequent criminal investigation by detectives revealed that Dykes had been sexually assaulted by one or more suspects. It was believed that several personal items were removed from the residence by the assailant(s). Autopsy results concluded that Dykes died as a result of cardiac arrhythmia as she was sexually assaulted.
An press release Tuesday from the SAPD said DNA evidence led to the arrest.
On Monday, March 4, 2019, investigators with the department’s Criminal Investigations Division arrested Gonzales in the culmination of the 32-year-old unsolved murder. Gonzales was located and taken into custody in Lewisville, Texas, with assistance from the Texas Rangers and booked into the Denton County Jail. Gonzales is charged with first degree felony murder.
With no immediate arrest or viable tips to go on, Dykes’ murder remained a mystery and the case grew cold. Several years later, investigative efforts were reinvigorated by SAPD Cold Case Det. Jim Coleman, who coordinated with the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab for additional DNA testing.
DPS Crime Lab officials deemed that the sample, which was found to be from an unknown male, was not sufficient for submission into the Combined DNA Index System (CODUS); however, the sample was adequate for DNA comparison if a known DNA profile was submitted. At the time of this development, there were no known suspects and the case came to a standstill.
In March 2015, Coleman re-engaged officials with the DPS Crime Lab in hopes that the sample could be re-evaluated using the latest scientific techniques. This new effort proved successful and the sample was deemed a sufficient quantity for submission into CODUS.
In May 2015, the Federal DNA Database Unit of the FBI conducted a routine search of their Convicted Offender Database. That routine search resulted in a match with a previously convicted federal offender — Adolph Gonzales. Furthermore, through follow up investigation, detectives discovered that Gonzales previously lived at 1023 Culberson.
As a result, investigators were granted a search warrant for Gonzales’ DNA, which was obtained and submitted to the DPS Crime Lab for comparison in July 2015.
In November 2017, a DPS forensic scientist notified SAPD investigators that the submitted sample DNA profile was over one billion times more likely to have come from Gonzales than from another subject.
Following Det. Coleman’s departure from the department in 2017, the investigation was assigned to detectives Lynn Dye and Adrian Castro.
Pursuant to their follow-up investigation and receipt of a positive DNA evidence confirmation by the DPS Crime Lab, probable cause was established to obtain an arrest warrant for Gonzales on March 1, 2019.