TX police search for murderer of security officer
ROUND ROCK, TEXAS January 9 2019 — The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office is reaching out to the public in solving a murder case dating to 2006.
On the sheriff’s office Twitter page, officials ask for tips from the public in solving a cold case involving the murder of Philise Estes, who was found dead in her Round Rock home on Jan. 30, 2006. According to officials, she was working as a security guard at the University of Texas at Austin with dreams of becoming an officer with the Austin Police Department at the time of her death.
According to past reports, prosecutors in 2011 charged the woman’s former boyfriend, Patric Fairs, with her murder by stangulation. Murder charges eventually were dropped after Fairs spent 427 days in jail “pending further investigation,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing at the time.
According to a report by the Austin American-Statesman at the time, Fairs, 47, was charged in 2011 in connection with the strangling death of the 33-year-old woman at their home before the district attorney’s office filed a motion for dismissal “in the interest of justice pending further investigation,” according to a court document filed at the time.
An attorney for Fairs noted “multiple items of evidence, including DNA and fingerprints, which had yet to undergo forensic testing by law enforcement” in securing his release, the newspaper reported. The attorney said he discovered evidence that was not tested after he made a request for the complete file on Fairs from law enforcement after receiving 4,500 pages’ worth of documents, 25 DVDs, reports and photographs. The attorney also said the case file included fingerprints found at the scene that did not match his client’s, along with unidentified blood.
The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office urges anyone with information to contact them by calling (512) 943-5204 or emailing cnoldcasetips@wilco.org.
