The Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office today announced that Maurice Nasmeh killed Jeanine Sanchez-Harms, who went missing in 2001, based on evidence of 27 rug fibers found in his car, finally putting to a rest a 10-year-old murder mystery.
Though the investigation, which District Attorney Jeff Rosen said was “exhaustive and extensive,” has been concluded it does not bring Nasmeh to justice. On Jan. 15, Sanchez-Harms’ 52-year-old brother, Wayne Sanchez, shot and killed Nasmeh at a shopping center in San Jose and then took his own life.
Wayne Sanchez accused Nasmeh of murdering his sister, who went missing on July 27, 2001.
Although Sanchez-Harms’ body has not been found, the district attorney’s office determined Nasmeh did, in fact, murder Sanchez-Harms shortly after they arrived at her apartment, concealed her body in a Persian rug on her living room floor and used his Jeep Grand Cherokee to dispose of her body.
“I believe the evidence proves beyond a reasonable doubt and I believe a Santa Clara County jury would convict him,” Rosen told reporters at a news conference this morning.
The conclusion was based on the discovery of 27 fibers from Sanchez-Harms’ Persian rug and latch hook rugs in the cargo area of Nasmeh’s Jeep.
“This is not like finding a needle in a haystack, this is like finding a needle in a stack of needles,” Rosen said. “There is no innocent explanation for those 27 fibers to be in the back of Maurice Nasmeh’s Jeep Cherokee.”
Rosen cited also Nasmeh’s history of violence against women, especially when under the influence of marijuana and alcohol. He was under the influence of both substances the night he followed Sanchez-Harms to her apartment.
On the evening of July 27, Sanchez-Harms, 42, and Nasmeh, 46, returned to her one-bedroom apartment on Chirco Drive in Los Gatos after several hours of socializing.
The pair spent hours drinking at the Rock Bottom Brewery in Campbell and smoked marijuana in the parking lot with two others before heading to another local bar, where they had more drinks with another man, according to officials.
Sanchez-Harms and Nasmeh then went to her apartment and picked up a six-pack of Heineken beer at Jiffy Market, a nearby convenience store, at about 11 p.m., the last time Sanchez-Harms was seen alive in public.
Around 12:30 a.m., a neighbor was awakened by a loud bang that he said sounded like a gunshot. When he looked out the window in the direction of Sanchez-Harms’ apartment, he said he saw an SUV-type vehicle that might have been green in color, make a U-turn and drive away. He described the driver of the vehicle as a man with a mustache, hair on the sides, and balding on top. The descriptions of the car and the driver matched Nasmeh’s Jeep and appearance, according to the district attorney’s office.
The police investigation began the following Monday after Sanchez-Harms’ friend notified police that she had failed to report to work.
Officers found that a number of items were missing from the apartment, including a slipcover, two seat cushions, pillows from a loveseat and a Persian rug.
Most telling was the disappearance of any of the unopened or empty Heineken beer cans. Nasmeh later admitted to investigators that he removed all the cans when he left that night, behavior that the district attorney’s office said is “unusual and proves that Nasmeh was determined to leave nothing behind that could incriminate him.”
Officers later found Nasmeh’s fingerprint in Sanchez-Harms’ Mustang. They also seized and examined Nasmeh’s Jeep for evidence.
Several weeks later, the Persian rug was found rolled up near some bushes in a shopping center parking lot on Hillsdale Avenue in San Jose, less than four miles from Sanchez-Harms’ apartment and less than one mile from Nasmeh’s home. A resident notified police in April 2003 about the discovery after seeing a photograph of the rug in a newspaper.
During the initial investigation, Nasmeh told police that he last saw Sanchez-Harms asleep on her living room couch between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. on July 28.
In October, the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department served search warrants and collected evidence at both Nasmeh’s home and his business, where he worked as an architect. The Sanchez-Harms case was eventually deemed a homicide, police said.
After years of investigation, police arrested Nasmeh in December of 2004 and he was held in Santa Clara County Jail while on trial for Sanchez-Harms’ murder.
In June of 2007, charges against Nasmeh were dismissed so that additional testing could be performed on some crucial pieces of evidence after the proficiency of a key criminalist was called into question. Nasmeh was released from custody pending the results of the additional testing.
The testing was conducted beginning in December 2007 by Skip Palenik, a nationally recognized fiber analyst and founder of Microtrace in Elgin, Ill. His lab examined hundreds of thousands of fibers using a variety of techniques and issued a final report on July 29, 2011.
As part of the 10-year investigation, the Los Gatos Police Department generated a 2,700-page report documenting more than 235 interviews, the execution of 12 search warrants, the collection of 24 DNA profiles, and the search of 20 separate locations for Sanchez-Harms’ body. The Santa Clara County crime lab logged nearly 2,300 hours and generated 58 laboratory examination reports.
“This was a rigorous, meticulous and exhaustive analysis,” Rosen said. “We wanted to make sure we’d give you a product that was indisputable.”
Both he and Los Gatos Police Chief Scott Seaman said one piece of the puzzle still remains a mystery: Sanchez-Harms’ body is missing and they said it is likely that someone knows or at least has a clue as to where it is. Seaman urged anyone who may have information about the body to notify police.