HOUSTON – A pair of innocent-looking blue suede stilettos would soon become infamous, attracting headlines from across the globe. One of the heels became the weapon of choice on a fateful, cloudy early morning in June 2013.
Kicking off Season 4 of the national award-winning docu-series ‘The Evidence Room’ is the story forever entwined of Stefan Andersson and Ana Trujillo, otherwise known as the ‘Stiletto Killer.’
Trujillo claimed to be a battered woman who was forced to defend herself. However, investigators say the evidence told a different story. One of domestic violence, and the victim here was 59-year-old Andersson.
“To put it in perspective for your viewers. His face looked like Swiss cheese. She hit him so many times with that stiletto heel, and we put it in evidence,” says Harris County Prosecutor John Jordan. “And there weren’t fractures. He bled to death. So it was that kind of force, those kind of markings. It’s hard for me to understand how she would be able to strike him 25 or 30 times and cause that much blood and not realize you killed.”
Andersson was a biochemist and professor at the University of Houston. He spent the night with Trujillo, who was his ex-girlfriend, drinking at a neighborhood bar.
“She wanted to stay at the at the bar, allegedly. You can see the footage. She is walking around. She is flirting with a bunch of people. He wants to go home.” Jordan adds. “The footage from the lobby of the apartment complex, he walks in and he appears to be defeated. He has his head is down. And you see him going into the elevator. Moments later, she would kill him.”
Packed at his home was her luggage, which sat by the door just feet from where law enforcement would find Andersson.
Trujillo’s defense lawyer tells us, “She was moving out, and he didn’t want her to move out. He was drunk and a pretty bad alcoholic, from what I came to find out. And, he snapped, and they got into a fight.”
During a four-hour interview after the killing, she would tell investigators, “when he would grab me, he was trying to hit me and I was like, please, like so I was just, and then he grabbed me and I, I was hitting him with the shoe. Please stop, stop, and that’s when I, I got up. I was trying to use, he wouldn’t let me, you know, like he had me. And I was like, please. And I was like Stefan. And then that’s when I saw the blood. And I was like, Stefan, please, listen, you’re bleeding. If I let you go, can you, are you, can you not hurt me?”
“The blood spatter ended up being key not only to the investigation but in the trial itself because witnesses can tell you different things. The great thing about scientific evidence, it doesn’t lie. It told a story,” says Jordan. “Anderson was lying on his back as she continued to strike him 25 or 30 times with that high heel shoe. The way that the cast off was, the way that the blood hit the wall, the way that her, her jeans were soaked in blood. It was obvious that she had straddled him and she had beaten him to death.”
Carroll says, “you know, maybe she went overboard. I don’t know. Maybe he was getting a hold of her, and she kept to do what she did.”
Everyone who knew Andersson says he was a gentle soul. The medical examiner says he had clear defensive wounds. Something investigators didn’t find on Trujillo.
Ana Trujillo is now 54 years old and serving a life sentence at the Mountain View prison unit in Gatesville, Texas. She’ll be eligible for parole in the year 2043.
‘The Evidence Room’ brings a fresh perspective to some of the most notorious crimes in Texas history. From confession tapes to crime scene photographs, to the murder weapons themselves - we’ll bring you up close and personal with gripping cases that dominated headlines and still impact how we live and work today.
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