Former Henderson County Sheriff George Erwin and former deputies John Delk and Duane Cannon vividly remember the day Aug. 21, 1986 — especially now, since the man Delk and Cannon apprehended that day is on trial this week for murder in a nearly four-decades old cold case in Lexington, South Carolina.
Jury was selected Feb. 5 in Lexington County on the first day of Thomas Eric McDowell’s trial. Thanks to advances in forensic technology, McDowell was arrested in January 2022 and is now on trial for the murder of then 4-year-old Jessica Gutierrez.
The alleged crime happened on June 5, 1986, and Gutierrez’s remains have never been found.
According to police reports, Gutierrez was asleep in a bed next to her sister, Rebecca. Investigators said an intruder entered the children’s bedroom and was able to lift the sleeping Jessica out of her bed and exit the home through the front door without rousing the girls’ mother, Debbie Gutierrez. The family never saw Jessica again.
Prosecutors said McDowell was dating Debbie Gutierrez at the time and that his fingerprint was found on the window of the children’s bedroom.