Thursday, February 18, 2010

San Antonio, TX: Ex-Boyfriend Charged In Death Of FHS Grad

Posted: Wednesday, Feb 17, 2010 - 03:19:20 pm CST

A former boyfriend has been arrested in San Antonio and charged with murder in connection with the Jan. 1, 2009, death of Dana Clair Edwards, 32, a 1994 Fredericksburg High School graduate.

At last report, Jon Thomas Ford, 41, of San Antonio was being held in the Bexar County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Ford was arrested without incident early Saturday morning at his home.

He dated Miss Edwards for about 2½ years before the couple broke up in October 2008, said her father, Darrell, who lives in Stonewall with his wife, Deborah.

Mr. and Mrs. Edwards discovered the body of their daughter on the bathroom floor of her San Antonio apartment early Jan. 2 last year, about 24 hours after she had left a small New Year’s Eve party not far from her apartment.

Following an autopsy, the Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the cause of death as being ligature strangulation.

However, it wasn’t until 11 months later on Dec. 9, 2009, that investigators received a report on DNA taken from a bloody towel that had covered the slain woman’s head.

Two days later, the San Antonio Express-News reported, officials obtained a search warrant for Ford’s DNA which, they said, was found to match evidence on the towel.

At the time of her death, Miss Edwards, a former FHS Student Council president, had been working as a designer and decorator for her family’s construction business.

She grew up in Alamo Heights and attended St. Mary’s Hall in San Antonio before attending FHS.

Contacted by phone Monday at his home near Stonewall, Mr. Edwards said he and his wife want to thank the San Antonio Police Department “for its hard work and diligence on this case. They’ve done a very good job.”

Edwards added that his family has been “very well supported by the people of Stonewall, Austin and San Antonio during these trying times. We still have a long way to go before all this will be over.”

“Nothing will bring Dana back or will make us feel better about what’s happened,” he said.

For more on this story, read this week’s print and online editions of the Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post. If you are a print subscriber, your full online subscription is free. All you need to do is call 830-997-2155 to get a password. If you are not a subscriber, call 997-2155 or click on the ‘Subscribe’ button on the left side of the home page and sign up today!

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