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Sometime last week friends and co-workers grew concerned about Richard Hernandez, age 38. The Dallas man was last seen leaving the Wal-Mart where he worked, and then no one heard from him again. He'd been at the Wal-Mart for 8 years. It wasn't like Richard to just not show up.
Cops went to Hernandez's apartment in northwest Dallas for a welfare check, and they found blood. Lots of blood. Richard Hernandez's one-bedroom home was an abattoir.
The floor in Hernandez's apartment was covered in blood. The walls, streaked with blood. The couch, covered in blood. A warrant issued later in Denton County, TX stated that it looked as though the bathtub had been used to dismember the body of Richard Hernandez. The Dallas County medical examiner ruled that tissue samples found in the tub were from internal organs.
Seth Lawton Winder, age 29, once lived at the same apartment complex. The apartment manager remembered him, and she told police that she'd seen Winder near Hernandez's place on Wednesday and Thursday, after Hernandez went incommunicado.
Authorities picked Winder up and charged him with using Hernandez's debit card. On Sunday, they took a blood-soaked backpack into evidence. Inside they found items belong to both Winder and Richard Hernandez.
The worst evidence was yet to come. Investigators got in touch with Winder's dad and searched the elder Winder's garage. There they found, in the words of the Dallas News, "a digital camera with pornographic images of Mr. Winder in Mr. Hernandez's apartment." The Dallas NBC affiliate was less circumspect about the "pornographic images." In an article published online, NBC 5 reported that "police have pornographic cell phone pictures of Winder and Hernandez." Other items owned by Richard Hernandez were also found inside the same garage.
Seth Winder had been living rough in a tent in The Colony, TX. A search of the tent yielded a sword and more items owned by Richard Hernandez. Those, too, were covered in blood.
Seth Winder's father has asked that his name be kept out of articles about the murder of Richard Hernandez, but he did make a statement: "I just want to make sure everybody understands that he is insane [...] He is mentally ill, and he's been that way since probably early 2000. ... He's been arrested numerous times, and I told the police every single time that he's crazy and they wouldn't listen."
Winder's father has also said that his son is fascinated with knives. Seth Winder has been a danger to his family in the past, as well -- his father said Winder tried to strangle his mother 3 years ago.
Homeless drifter or no, Seth Winder did indeed have a MySpace page. He created the profile on July 20, 2008, and apparently didn't log in again after making the page. His headline was made-up word: "golfretrology." Under "About me," Winder wrote, "sexy fucker, deep thinker." Below that, under "Who I'd like to meet," Winder stated, "you."
Kind of chilling, in hindsight. Otherwise there wasn't much to see. Via the profile, Winder stated his "General" interests were "sex drugs & r&r." His hero was "spiderman."
There were no photos of Winder himself, but there were two works of art -- one a digitally-altered photo of a woman dancing between two speakers, the other a painting, possibly by William Blake.
Winder's arrest marks only the 3rd time in 3 decades that Dallas authorities have gone ahead and filed charges of capital murder, even though they don't have a body. Dallas Police Lt. Craig Miller told NBC 5 that with the evidence collected, police feel like they "have a strong case to go ahead -- even without a body -- to file a capital murder charge."
