Missing letter key to finding woman’s murderer

Friday, September 24, 2010

By: Adela Uchida

(VIDEO: http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/video?id=7688294

HOUSTON (KTRK) — One letter could solve the 8-month-old murder of Myra Ical. But the two-page letter is missing one crucial clue that police need to catch the killer.

Houston police homicide investigators say at this point, there is one person they think may have murdered Ical back in January. But an anonymous letter holds the key to a possible arrest. The letter gives a first name for the possible murderer, but because of the sensitivity of the investigation, Eyewitness News is not releasing that name.

The key to an unsolved murder came in the mail in June, addressed to Cristan Williams, the executive director of the Transgender Foundation in Montrose.

“This person was very much afraid to come forward with this information so they wrote an anonymous tip letter,” Williams said.

On January 18, the body of a transgendered woman was found here in the 4300 block of Garrott, next to the Southwest Freeway. Police won’t say how Ical died, but eight months later, the case is not cold.

“Most cold cases are not considered cold until every lead has been exhausted, so there is some things that we’re working on,” HPD Homicide Sgt. Bobby Roberts said.

One of those things is a letter written by someone who signed it only as “Matthew.” He described two chance meetings with a man. The first happened in February at the Guava Lamp Bar on Waugh.

“He seems to be a very strange person anyway,” Matthew wrote, say the man tried to pick up his friend.

Matthew says he overheard the man talking about leaving the country because of what he had done.

The second meeting happened at South Beach Nightclub in Montrose in May.

“He was again under the influence but remembered my friend and began making a pass again,” the letter writer says. He also says a passerby told him the man was violent.

Police say Matthew is detailed enough and credible enough that they need to find him.

“It could assist us in getting warrants for DNA evidence or whatever it is we need to help this case and get us to a conclusion,” Roberts said.

The man described in Matthew’s letter is the only person police are looking at for Ical’s murder right now.

And back at the Transgender Foundation, Williams says Matthew is the key to preventing more murders.

“Unless they come forward, someone else can be the next victim,” she said.

Crime Stoppers is offering up to $5,000 for information leading that leads to the arrest of a suspect. Anyone with tips is asked to call the hot line at 713-222-8477.

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7688145