On Christmas day, in 2002, Sasha Hedgecock was discovered in an alfalfa field in Carlsbad. The 21-year-old woman had been shot seven times. She died from her injuries several days later in Covenant Medical Hospital in Lubbock. It is only now, after 14 years, that an arrest has been made in this case. And that’s due to Katie’s Law.
The law was created following the 2003 rape and murder of 22-year-old Katie Sepich in Las Cruces. The original version of Katie’s Law, which passed in 2006, mandated that anyone arrested for a violent felony had to provide authorities with a DNA sample. Such samples could then be run against evidence from other open cases.
In 2011, the lawmakers unanimously voted to expand the law to require samples from anyone arrested for a felony crime. It has resulted in over 500 DNA matches, including the one in this case.
In 2009, Jeremy J. Melendrez, aged 34, was accused and subsequently convicted of burglary and aggravated battery charges. He was sentenced to six years in the Eddy County Detention Center. When his DNA was entered into the system, it matched a sample collected during the investigation of Sasha Hedgecock’s murder.
Still, it took almost seven years to construct a case that was persuasive enough to hold up in court. And the charges come at a critical time. Melendrez has almost completed his current sentence and was due to be released in 2016.
He is now in prison in Hobbs and his bond is set at $500,000. The degree of the murder charge he’ll face will be determined at a preliminary hearing.
The Hedgecock family has opted not to discuss this recent arrest with the media.
At the moment, 29 states have some form of Katie’s Law on the books. Other states are resistant to the idea of collecting DNA from people prior to their conviction. What do you think of Katie’s Law?
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