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A UT student charged with murdering a woman in West Campus, dismembering her remains and fleeing to Mexico returned to Austin in custody Thursday.
Colton Pitonyak, 22, is charged with first-degree murder after he was arrested in a Mexican border town early Tuesday morning, ending a four-day manhunt.
Pitonyak is charged with allegedly killing Jennifer Cave, 21, who was found dead last Thursday in Pitonyak's apartment at the Orange Tree Apartments in West Campus. Austin police found Cave with a gunshot wound and dismembered limbs.
Pitonyak's bail has been set at $1 million, and his lawyer said he will plead not guilty.
The lawyer, Samuel E. Bassett, who represented Pitonyak on a previous cocaine possession charge, planned to speak to his client Thursday for the first time.
"She came to school halfway through senior year after everyone had already made friends, and started doing some scandalous things to fit in," Jasso said.
Jasso met Pitonyak early in the fall of 2003 and knew him socially over the last two years through Montero and other friends.
"He drank a lot, and was more into drugs than most others," Jasso said. "I saw him last April and could tell he had already ruined himself. He was 20 pounds lighter and couldn't keep his focus on anything."
Jasso said Pitonyak was into cocaine, an assertion confirmed by other friends.
He was arrested last summer for cocaine possession, and details from the arrest seem to paint the best picture, though hazy, of the UT student's state of mind last week.
Pitonyak called 911 July 4, 2004, and whispered an address: 2810 Salado St., No. 105. This is where Pitonyak lived alone at the time, a few blocks north of the Orange Tree condominium complex.
When Austin Police Department Officer Ken Covington arrived, the window in front of apartment No. 104 was broken. Glass was everywhere.
Pitonyak's neighbor, UT math senior Dustin Dobervich, said he had gotten out of bed around 10 a.m., when he heard fighting outside his window.
He didn't think anything of it at first. Then one of the men slammed into his window and broke it.
Dobervich was sweeping up when Covington knocked on his door.
"I was just about to call you guys," Dobervich remembered saying.
He said the officer was surprised that the 911 call did not come from Dobervich.
Pitonyak did not answer his door, and the officer left.
Then the person called 911 back and whispered the same address. When Covington returned to Pitonyak's apartment, a sergeant gave the OK to enter through the window.
While Covington knocked on the door, another officer tried to pry open the window.
Dobervich said he was sweeping up the glass outside, when the door suddenly opened.
There stood Pitonyak, with what Covington called "bloodshot glassy eyes," emitting a "moderate odor" of alcohol.
That's when the details get murky.
Police say they were "just inside the front door" and saw cocaine on the coffee table. Six Xanax pills and seven Ambien pills were sitting on the counter top, the affidavit says.
Pitonyak's lawyer, though, says the apartment was too dark to see such a small amount of cocaine. In December, Austin attorney David Hughes filed a motion to suppress all evidence from Pitonyak's drug arrest.
"If we had tried that case, I was going to bring in a video camera and show how dark it was," Hughes said. "Unless that police officer was Superman, he couldn't have seen anything because Colton had beer bottles all over the place, and it was so dark."
The judge denied the request.
Hughes encouraged his client to seek drug treatment in the fall.
In the fall, Pitonyak spent a month at La Hacienda Treatment Center, a drug rehab facility north of Waco, Hughes said. Hughes said he wanted to talk his client into six months. Hughes speculated that Pitonyak's abnormal behavior last July could be attributed to drugs, perhaps a "drug-induced psychosis." However, Hughes said the cocaine and pills could have been left by someone the night before.
Investigators refuse to speculate about any drug involvement in last week's murder, and Cave's autopsy is sealed.
But according to Jasso, Cave and Pitonyak knew each other well, and Pitonyak "wasn't the kind of guy a girl would hang around simply because they liked him."
"I don't remember Colton ever being in a real relationship; his relationship was with drugs," Jasso said.
Through the window
Pitonyak didn't show up for a court appearance last December. Rather than risk another arrest and forfeit the $4,000 bond, Hughes says, Pitonyak's parents asked the lawyer to retrieve him from his Orange Tree condo.
Hughes said his client didn't answer the door. Then he noticed a small hole in Pitonyak's window, near the latch. With permission from the parents, Hughes opened the window and began to crawl in.
Pitonyak rolled off the sofa directly under the window, Hughes said, and woke up on the floor.
Hughes turned on the light and drove Pitonyak, who was mostly quiet for the ride, to the courthouse.
Eight months later, someone else climbed through Pitonyak's window. This time it was Jim Sedwick, the boyfriend of Cave's mother, Sharon.
Instead of beer bottles and a groggy college guy, court documents say the uninvited guest found a horrible smell and a gruesome scene in the bathtub.
Felony or jail time?
On June 10, two months before Cave's murder, Pitonyak faced a choice.
If he went to trial for his drug charge and lost, he would be convicted of a felony but would do no time, said Sam Bassett, who replaced Hughes as Pitonyak's lawyer in March and will represent Pitonyak on the murder charge.
Or he could plead guilty to a Class A misdemeanor, "attempted" possession, and serve time in jail but avoid probation and a felony conviction.
Pitonyak chose the misdemeanor.
He was sentenced to 60 days in Travis County Jail, but served only 20. Bassett said it's common for inmates to receive double, even triple, credit for the days they serve. Pitonyak was released June 30, less than 50 days before he went out with Cave last Tuesday night.
Click below to access case documents
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