Five San Diego residents were arrested last week for the murder 13 years ago of UCSD School of Medicine professor David F. Hessler, then 30. Cold-case crime investigators used an expanded fingerprint database to track down the suspects.
Fingerprints collected at the crime scene on Nov. 14, 1995, were reexamined in February 2008, resulting in the identification and arrest of Buzie Gene Wiemer, 34.
Over the next 15 months, detectives from the cold-case homicide team and investigators from the District Attorney’s Office gathered more information about the case, which led them to identify four additional suspects.
‘Once we had a potential identification of the first subject, we began working vigorously to find the other suspects,’ Lt. Terry McManus of the San Diego Police Department homicide unit said.
The other four suspects ‘mdash; Edul Jinnah Azeez, 34; Khoi Leron Bruster, 32; Alvin Mamangun Timbol, 32; and an unnamed 30-year-old man ‘mdash; are all San Diego residents. Investigators are withholding the name of the fifth suspect because he was a juvenile at the time of the fatal shooting.
Police said Timbol, 19 at the time of the murder, is the man who allegedly shot and killed Hessler.
All of the men surrendered peacefully when arrested last week, authorities said.
At their arraignment Wednesday, the four identified suspects pleaded ‘not guilty,’ and are currently being held in custody in lieu of $1 million bail.
In 1995, Hessler walked outside of the University City home he shared with his fiancee at approximately 2 a.m., after being awakened by noises coming from the front yard. He confronted thieves breaking into his SUV and was shot in the chest.
When police arrived at his Huggins Street home in response to neighborhood reports of gunfire, Hessler was lying on the ground. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to police, the theives were after the expensive computer equipment stored in Hessler’s truck, to be used for a presentation Hessler was giving the following day at the San Diego Convention Center.
The professor and computer-programming analyst worked at the UCSD School of Medicine for six years before his death.
San Diego police had developed no leads on the case until reviewing the evidence last year, which pointed to their first suspect in the killing.
‘There has never been anything to indicate that the suspects had any personal connection to the professor,’ McManus said.
McManus declined to discuss any specific evidence, due to the possibility of a future trial for the five men.
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