Subject: [NEXTEL-1] 'Digital' print wins warrant

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2004 02:59:40 -0500

'Digital' print wins warrant
By JOSH NOEL
[email-masked]
Advocate staff writer
WBRZ, LA - Feb 10, 2004

When a palm print wasn't enough to convince
a judge that Nathaniel Jelks Jr. killed an
ex-girlfriend nearly five months ago, police
turned to the digital prints he supposedly left
behind.

In an investigative practice becoming more
common, detectives used Jelks' cell-phone
signal to link him to the shooting of
28-year-old Amanda Davis, who died Sept.
16 in the front seat of her freshly waxed
black Honda Accord.

Jelks' cell-phone records -- which police say
contradict his alibi and place him within 2
miles of Davis' home when she was killed --
led state District Judge Bonnie Jackson to
sign an arrest warrant Monday accusing him
of second-degree murder.

Baton Rouge police released a photo of Jelks, 37, Tuesday night.
Police spokesman Cpl. Don Kelly said investigators considered Jelks a suspect
shortly after the killing, after finding his palm print on the driver's side of
Davis' car. However, Jackson refused to sign a warrant, saying she needed more
evidence that Jelks could be the shooter, Kelly said.

With Jelks now linked to Davis' death, police plan to re-examine the unsolved
killing of another of Jelks' ex-girlfriends, Wendy Hamilton, who was beaten and
set on fire in 1997 in Baton Rouge.
Hamilton, who had a son with Jelks, was also found in her car.
"We have periodically gone back and looked at that case, and this is certainly
one of those things that will make us do that again," Kelly said.

He said Jelks was questioned in Hamilton's murder, but never ruled out as a
suspect.
Hamilton's sister-in-law, Preeti Hamilton, said she hopes police focus their
attention on Jelks.
"He didn't like her talking to other men on the phone and they would get into
arguments about that," she said. "At one point she tried to leave him. I don't
know what happened with that."

Though Jelks was questioned in Wendy Hamilton's slaying, he continues to see
their 10-year-old son on weekends and holidays, Preeti Hamilton said.

Wendy Hamilton's mother cares for her three grandchildren, Preeti Hamilton said.

Davis' mother, Herma Lee Davis, said Tuesday that her daughter dated Jelks for
less than a year, and that she didn't know his previous girlfriend had been
killed.

She declined to say whether Jelks had abused her daughter.
"I don't want to get into that right now," she said. "My (blood) pressure's up."

Herma Lee Davis, 61, also said Jelks phoned her the day her daughter was killed
to "find out what had happened." Herma Lee Davis said she was too upset to talk
to him, and that she hasn't spoken with Jelks since.

Asked if she had considered that he could be the killer, Herma Lee Davis
hesitated, then said, "Yes."
"But it's hard to say because I don't like to judge anybody," she said. "I was
just asking the Lord to bring whoever it was to justice."
Jelks' arrest warrant says the following about Amanda Davis' killing on Sept.
16:

Davis was preparing to go to work at the Comfort Inn on Acadian Thruway, near
Interstate 10, when she was shot to death shortly after 4 a.m. in the driveway
of her home at 1275 Mayfair Hills Drive.

Two of Davis' friends told police that Jelks had threatened to kill her because
the two had recently ended their relationship.
Accompanied by an attorney, Jelks met with police and said he last spoke with
Davis about 10:30 p.m. the day before she died. He denied killing Davis, and
told police he was unaware of the shooting until his brother called him the next
day.
However, detectives learned that Jelks' cell phone had been used to call Davis'
cell phone 44 times during the last three days of Davis' life.

Among those calls were one at 4:05 a.m. and another at 4:06 a.m. on the day
Davis died.
Jelks phoned Davis about 4 a.m., but said he did so from his home in north Baton
Rouge -- almost nine miles away -- and that she did not answer.

But the call at 4:05 a.m. hit a cell tower at 8156 One Calais Ave., 7 miles from
his home. The call at 4:06 a.m. hit a cell tower at 8103 Bluebonnet Road, 9
miles from his home.

Both towers are within 2 miles of Davis' home, the warrant says.
According to the warrant, a Nextel employee told police it was "physically
impossible" for Jelks to have made a call from his home and for the signal to be
picked up from a tower in south Baton Rouge.

There are at least 17 cell towers closer to Jelks' home than the pair that
received his signals that morning, the warrant says.
The warrant also says that Jelks did not try to call Davis after her estimated
time of death.

Kelly said tracking cell-phone signals has been used in investigations before,
but declined to discuss how often the practice is used.
"It's an investigative tool that is becoming more common as cell phones become
more common," he said. "But we don't like to discuss our techniques because we
don't want the bad guys to know what we can do."

Records show that Jelks has been arrested at least seven times in East Baton
Rouge Parish, mostly during the early and mid-1990s.
In 1993, he was found guilty of possession of cocaine and sentenced to 30 months
in prison.
In 1997, he pleaded guilty to illegal possession of stolen things after he was
found driving a stolen truck, and was given an eight-year suspended sentence
with five years of supervised probation.

In 1990, Jelks was shot in both his legs during a drive-by shooting on Columbus
Dunn Street as he worked on a parked car.
Jelks, whose last known address is 4309 Woodlawn Ave., is a black man, 5 feet 6
inches tall and 180 pounds.
Attempts to contact Jelks and his family members late Tuesday night were
unsuccessful.

Anyone with information about his whereabouts can contact the Homicide Division
at 225-389-4869 or Crime Stoppers at 225-344-7867.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/stories/021104/new_jelks001.shtml
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