Investigators used DNA found on a McDonald's cup to link a woman to her husband's cold-case murder, according to the Milwaukee Police Department.
Cassandra Hult, 28, has now been charged with first-degree homicide in the shooting death of her husband Jose Santiago.
On March 23, 2020, Santiago was found dead in his car from what appeared to be an execution-style gunshot wound to the back of his head, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The car was parked near the St Adalbert Cemetery and sat there for approximately two days before a jogger noticed it and became suspicious.
The jogger approached the car and looked inside, where they saw Santiago's unresponsive body.
Police that investigated the scene found a spent bullet casing, a pair of McDonald's cups and a receipt for the fast food restaurant inside the car.
Investigators tested the cup for DNA. During a preliminary hearing on Tuesday, Milwaukee Police Detective Jake Puschnig testified that the analysis turned up fingerprints and DNA for both Santiago and Hult.
Hult became a subject of interest for the police investigating the murder. She was questioned numerous times following Santiago's murder. Police learned that the two frequently fought, and that they had only been married for about a year-and-a-half before the murder.
She also admitted to investigators that the pair fought on the day before Santiago was found dead.
Hult explained the situation to the police; she had found text messages between Santiago and other women on his phone. She confronted him about the messages, the couple fought, and Santiago kicked her out of his car, and then she went to stay with her grandmother on Milwaukee's north side.
She did not mention anything about stopping at a McDonald's.
Police determined that Hult's stories were inconsistent, and used cell phone location data to place her near the spot where Santiago died on the day he died.
Hult eventually left Wisconsin and moved to Buckeye, Arizona, where she moved in with a woman and the woman's daughter. That arrangement didn't last, however, as Hult and the woman got into a heated argument that ended with Hult getting kicked out.
According to a criminal complaint, the two women continued fighting after the initial incident, and even had an argument on FaceTime where Hult allegedly threatened to kill the woman and blurted out that she'd previously killed her husband.
The woman and her daughter reported the incident to Buckeye law enforcement. The younger woman living at the Arizona house also told police that Hult had admitted to her on a separate occasion that she killed her husband.
She wasn't the only one Hult allegedly told about Santiago.
A man told police that during a trip to Las Vegas in 2022, he allegedly met and had a fling with Hult. Shortly after their rendezvous, Hult reportedly moved to the West Coast and into the man's home in Sacramento, California.
He told police that over the course of their relationship, Hult confessed "multiple times" that she had killed Santiago.
With the witnesses claiming Hult openly spoke about killing Santiago and the DNA on the McDonald's cup, prosecutors were able to obtain a warrant for Hult's arrest on May 6.
Hult is being held at the Milwaukee County Jail, and her bond has been set at $500,000. She has, through her attorney, pleaded not guilty to the murder. She appeared in court on Monday, and her next appearance is scheduled for 10 July.
