Affidavit Reveals Reasons Behind New Arrests in Brownwood Murder
By: Lisa Tipton, brownwoodnews.com
Updated: January 10, 2012
Tuesday morning, a Motion for New Trial was filed by Murray along with an affidavit submitted by Bruce Spruill of the Brownwood Police Department.
Spruill's affidavit confirms the information from the informant and states that the informant believed that he could secure a recorded confession by at least one of the individuals responsible for the murder. Although the informant was not able to get the recorded confession, he was able to obtain information that cooberated the informant's claims that individuals other than Randall Philen were responsible for the murder of Ronald Philen, according to Spruill.
Spruill reported that results of fingerprint analysis requested from the Department of Public Safety Crime Laboratory in Austin, Texas were received on January 5th. A previous analysis of these unidentified fingerprints obtained from the crime scene were inconclusive according to the affidavit; however with names of those allegedly involved, Texas Ranger Danny Crawford contacted the DPS Lab to have known prints from those individuals compared to the unknown prints from the murder scene. The results returned positive for two of the new suspects named by the informant, according to the affidavit.
"The location of the prints was on a door panel that had been forcibly removed from a door in the decedent's home and the location of the prints excluded casual contact and indicated responsibility for the forcible removal of the panel from the door," stated Spruill in the affidavit.
Spruill along with Texas Ranger Crawford interviewed a second informant on January 5th who confirmed that one of the suspects named had confessed to him that he was involved in the murder of Ronald Philen.
"CI2 also confessed to committing a burglary of a habitation where he stole approximately four firearms, at least one matching the same caliber as the murder weapon used to kill Ronald Philen. After stealing those firearms, he took them to Pedro Rocha, Jr. and sold all four of them," Spruill states in the affidavit. "On January 9, 2011, myself and Ranger Crawford interviewed Alex Gil, Jr. who, then confronted with the fingerprint evidence, confessed to his involvement in the murder of Ronald Philen. He indicated that Pedro Rocha, Jr. was also involved."
The affidavit further states that Gil stated that four gunmen entered the Philen residence where Randall and Ronald lived, in the early morning hours of December 11, 2009 without consent with the intent to rob them of a quantity of marijuana from Ronald Philen.
The affidavit describes Gil's account of the murder:
"Alex stated that Pedro Rocha, Jr. and a third suspect entered into the room where Ronald Philen was located while he and a fourth suspect forcibly detained Randall Philen in another room. While Alex and the fourth suspect detained Randall, Alex heard shots fired in the room where Pedro Rocha, Jr. and the third suspect were located. Alex went to that room and saw the victim, Ronald Philen, lying on the floor and gave the location within the room of where the victim was later found by police during the initial investigation. After confessing his involvement, Alex Gil, Jr. was arrested for capital murder. Pedro Rocha, Jr. was arrested for capital murder after a complaint was signed by a Brown County magistrate."
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