Man with "significant robbery history" arrested in Oct. 2023 murder: APD
APD homicide Det. Brice Bishop on Oct. 2023 arrest
The Austin Police Department says its homicide unit has achieved a 100% case clearance rate for 2023. APD says this marks the first time this milestone has been reached since 2005. Det. Brice Bishop provided information on the arrest that gave the department its 100% case closure rate.
AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin Police Department has made an arrest in the October 2023 homicide of a man at a Southeast Austin apartment complex.
21-year-old Jalen Hemphil has been charged with first-degree murder in 50-year-old Feliciano Alvarado-Lajuj's death.
Final arrest for 2023
APD homicide Det. Brice Bishop on Oct. 2023 arrest
The Austin Police Department says its homicide unit has achieved a 100% case clearance rate for 2023. APD says this marks the first time this milestone has been reached since 2005. Det. Brice Bishop provided information on the arrest that gave the department its 100% case closure rate.
What we know:
APD says the final arrest was made on May 7, in connection with a homicide on Oct. 14, 2023.
Police say that they received a call reporting shots fired at around 2:20 a.m. in the parking lot of an apartment complex near East Riverside Drive and Woodland Avenue.
The victim, identified by police as Alvarado-Lajuj, was found by officers with gunshot wounds. He was taken to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead at 3:43 a.m.
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Det. Brice Bishop provided more context to the investigation, saying that "vital evidence" had been secured by two detectives who have since left the unit.
The case progressed through May 31, 2024, when a ballistics hit came back on the firearm involved in the case. Bishop was then assigned to the case in November 2024, and on Feb. 24, a DNA hit in CODIS helped identify a suspect, whom APD says is Hemphill.
According to Bishop, Hemphill has a significant robbery history and was out on deferred adjudication at the time of the murder.
What's next:
Bond has been set at $200,000 and Hemphill has also been ordered to not have any firearms and to have a GPS ankle monitor as bond conditions.
Hemphill was booked into the Travis County Jail on May 7 and is still there as of May 13. He is expected to appear in court on May 23.
Multiple homicides in one week in one area
3 murders in East Riverside area in a week
Police are investigating yet another homicide in southeast Austin. It's the third one this week in the East Riverside Drive area.
Dig deeper:
Alvarado-Lajuj's death was the first of three homicides in the East Riverside Drive area in one week in October 2023.
The next homicide happened around 48 hours later and only a half a mile away. There, police said they found 28-year-old Jader Francisco Tinoco-Salgado with gunshot wounds.
Police charged the victim’s cousin, 35-year-old Elvin Salvador Tinoco-Orosco, with first-degree murder. Investigators believe he shot and killed Jader during an argument.
Tinoco-Orosco is expected to go before a jury on May 19 and has been in the Travis County Jail since his booking in Oct. 2023.
The third homicide of the week happened at the Estates at the East Riverside apartments on Crossing Place. A teenager was shot and killed inside the apartment he lived in and police say he knew the suspect.
100% homicide case closure rate for 2023
Big picture view:
Hemphill's arrest on May 7 marked a milestone for APD's homicide unit: their first 100% case closure rate since 2005.
2005 saw 26 homicides; for comparison, 2023 saw 75 homicides.
The national homicide clearance rate for 2023 was 57.8%.
APD says its Homicide Unit has consistently maintained one of the highest clearance rates in the nation. Since 2005, only three calendar years' clearance rate dipped below 90%: 2006 at 75%, 2011 at 89% amid 2014 at 81%.
The Source: Information in this report comes from the Austin Police Department and previous reporting by FOX 7 Austin