SAN ANTONIO — A grocery store receipt helped San Antonio police crack a murder case.
Hashim Hashim has been charged in the 2016 stabbing death of Ruth Valdez. Her body was found along Isom Road on the north side on February 17, 2016. She had an H-E-B bag covering her head and a paper receipt stuck to her face.
Investigators went to the H-E-B along West Avenue where that receipt came from and found surveillance video of the victim and suspect together making a purchase at the pharmacy. The store is located about two miles away from where Valdez’s body was found.
According to an affidavit, Valdez’s daughters told police their mother had been dating Hashim. Police interviewed Hashim in March 2016, but later needed the FBI to translate because he primarily spoke Arabic. In the initial interview, Hashim said he was an Iraq refugee who came to the United States from Syria. He said he lived with other refugees who also fled Iraq, one of whom served as a translator for SAPD’s initial interview.
While San Antonio police located an Arabic translator, an affidavit states Hashim moved to the Buffalo, New York area and was arrested for felony domestic violence against another woman.
San Antonio police and the FBI interviewed Hashim while he was in custody in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in January 2019. According to an affidavit, police asked him where the clothes he wore on the day he went to H-E-B with Valdez were. He said they may have been at another woman’s place in San Antonio, but he couldn’t remember.
Police asked Hashim about his history of relationships with women. He said he had hit his wife before. According to an affidavit, he said “I lie about somethings,” then later said “yes, I lie, but not about this.”
Investigators said Hashim has admitted to going to the store with the victim, but has not confessed to killing her.
Hashim, 66, was arrested in September, more than 3 years after the killing.
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