SAN ANTONIO – During day three of the R.C. Curtis trial, state prosecutors brought forth a detective as a witness and evidence collected at the apartment of Paula Boyd, a beloved H-E-B employee killed in 2015.
On day two of the trial, the Bexar County Medical Examiner testified a long list of injuries Boyd suffered that led to her death.
Those injuries included a severed spinal cord, up to 15 rib fractures, a severely broken nose, severe lacerations to the top and lower lips, strangulation to the face and eyes, internal hemorrhaging on the muscles on the side of her neck.
Randal Hines, witness and detective, took to the stand Thursday with his testimony outlining a timeline of events during his investigation. He mentioned, upon discovering Boyd’s body on Oct. 21, that he could not identify her in the beginning but later learned the 75-year-old woman was Boyd.
The detective spoke about conversations he held with Boyd’s daughter, which is when he learned bank activity had taken place after her death.
During his investigation that led him to a convenience store on Huebner Road, he recovered receipts and surveillance footage showing when Boyd’s card had been used and by whom.
After showing that video to Boyd’s daughter, she immediately identified the suspect in the video, which Hines said he later tracked back to a home on Evers Road.
There, the detective obtained a search warrant for the address belonging to Curtis, who was then taken into custody.
During the trial, the defense argued that the documents, including bank records, had been altered, and the receipt copies Hines had could not be submitted because they believed the receipts were not the original source.
The judge ultimately allowed the bank records to be submitted for evidence. Still, only the official documents provided by the bank were allowed, not the additional pages included in the original packet state prosecutors planned to submit.
The trial continues through Friday. If convicted, Curtis faces life in prison.