Killer Smoke: Discarded Cigarette Results In Murder Charge For Texas Man

Thomas Atkinson, 35, ignored all of those ads about the risks of smoking for years and he is now facing the potential of life in prison or death in Texas. Now it is not those FDA bureaucrats gone wild, but criminal prosecutors who say that DNA tests on a discarded cigarette butt tied Athinson to a murder.

A discarded cigarette at the scene of a fatal July shooting in North Austin led detectives to a Hays County man now charged with murder of Alejandro “Alex” Hernandez Jr., 42 (below) Police found the butt in the pick up truck at the scene but Hernandez does not smoke. Police say that Hernandez picked up a prostitute called Sunshine before he was shot. Witnesses claimed that Hernandez would not allow Sunshine out of the truck and Atkinson confronted him — ultimately shooting him.

Source: Statesman