The tower dump turned up a cellphone number that was present at the crime scene and at locations in Greensboro and Hillsborough where the Taos had also been, search warrants state. — Photo by Leon Seibert on Unsplash
Eighteen months after a Durham man was gunned down outside his home, a young man tied to the crime scene by cellphone location data was arrested in his murder, court documents show.
Jaidyn Sumaje Tinsley, 24, of Mebane was charged with first-degree murder Oct 8 in the Feb 16, 2023, death of Jose Manuel Caceres-Murillo, 64, of the 800 block of Park Avenue, according to court records.
Search warrants show it took months to tie Tinsley to the shooting, requiring the help of nearby jurisdictions, including the Raleigh and Hillsborough police departments, and companies like Google and Volkswagen.
Caceres-Murillo was killed about 8am as he was leaving for work. Family members heard a gunshot and called 911 immediately, but he was declared dead at the scene just 10 minutes later from a gunshot wound to the head, according to the autopsy report.
Security camera footage from a neighbour’s house showed a young man point a gun at Caceres-Murillo, leading to a brief struggle before the suspect fatally shot Caceres-Murillo, according to search warrants.
“After killing Mr. Caceres-Murillo, the suspect was visible removing something from his person as he lay on the street,” a search warrant states. “A gray late model Volkswagen Taos with black wheels and no window tint pulled up to the scene, and the suspect entered the passenger seat. The vehicle was then driven from the area.”
A search of law enforcement databases revealed the car had been stolen from an apartment complex in Raleigh the night before the murder, search warrants state.
Vehicle tracking software located the Taos at an apartment complex in Hillsborough, and police were able to recover the stolen vehicle the day after the shooting.
Because the Taos had its own SIM card for uses like navigation that require cellphone tower-based services, T-Mobile was able to provide data tracking the Taos from the time it was stolen to the time police recovered the vehicle, according to search warrants. That data showed the car was at the crime scene in Durham, then traveled to Hillsborough, Greensboro, and back to Hillsborough.
Though investigators could now link the stolen Taos to the murder, they still didn’t have the shooter’s identity. So investigators requested what is known as a “tower dump” for the Taos’ locations on the day of the murder.
A tower dump finds cellphone numbers that connected with a nearby cell tower in specific locations at specific times. In this case, the dump turned up a cellphone number that was present at the crime scene and at locations in Greensboro and Hillsborough where the Taos had also been, search warrants state.
That number was tied to an ex-girlfriend of Tinsley’s, who told police she’d given the phone to him before their break-up, according to court documents. When she tried to retrieve the phone in January 2023 after they split, a friend of Tinsley’s allegedly pointed a gun at her, and Tinsley kept the phone.
After looking at the security camera footage capturing the shooting, the ex-girlfriend reportedly identified Tinsley as the shooter “based on his body size and clothing” and a hat and jacket he often wore, search warrants state. With that information, investigators were able to collect fingerprints and Tinsley’s DNA in November 2023, according to a search warrant.
Tinsley was arrested over a year later. It’s not clear why that delay occurred, and online court records don’t show any further search warrants or other documents explaining the gap.
Tinsley is being held in the Durham County jail with bail set at US$1mil secured. He is next set to appear in court Jan. 16, court records show.
Caceres-Murillo’s family could not be reached for comment. A GoFundMe showed his loved ones had raised US$7,230 of a US$20,000 goal to repatriate his body to his native Honduras as of Thursday morning. The News & Observer (Raleigh)/Tribune News Service
