DALLAS, TEXAS – October 26, 2015 (Gephardt Daily) – A man has been arrested in connection with the murder of 18-year-old Zoe Hastings in Texas.
The Dallas girl who disappeared October 12 while on her way to an LDS church meeting was found murdered outside her crashed van, just a few miles from the church facility.
Police have now arrested ‘sexual predator’ Antonio Lamar Cochran, 34, on a capital murder charge after his DNA was allegedly found at the crime scene.
Major Max Geron of the Dallas Police Department said Cochran’s DNA was already in the police database. He added that witness descriptions matched Cochran’s appearance.
Police had been looking for a black man seen talking to Hastings at a Walgreens drug store the same day she was murdered.
Geron said Cochran did not know the young woman before she was allegedly abducted, and are unsure what the motive could be.
‘He is obviously a sexual predator that’s been taken off the streets,’ Geron said.
When the DNA results came back, it took eight hours to track down Cochran and arrest him at a property in northeast Dallas. He is being held in Dallas County Jail on a $2.5 million bond.
According to a statement by the Dallas Police Department, Zoe Hastings’ van was found in a creek bed around 8:30 a.m. They said evidence at the scene indicated “obvious homicidal violence,” but refused to say exactly how Hasting’s died.
The recent high school graduate was last seen by her family Sunday afternoon as she headed to church class. When she did not return home they called police.
A parent who was driving his daughter to school the next morning found Hastings’ vehicle after being flagged down by a man who told him about the crashed van.
Booker T. Washington High School’s principal sent a note advising parents and community members about the 2015 graduate’s death and passed along the news with ‘great sadness’.
Anyone with information should call the Dallas Police Department Homicide Unit at 214-671-3584.
