Investigators tie Jonathan Fulton Smith to killings of mother, child using victim's cellphone

FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) — Investigators used the cellphone of a murdered mother to tie her killer, Jonathan Fulton Smith, to her death, and that of her child.

Jessica Walling and her 10-year-old son Chevy were killed in 2018. Two years later, Smith was arrested following his indictment for capital murder and arson in connection to their deaths.

Two witnesses to the crime died prior to the trial, leaving only the Walling's cell phone data as evidence against Smith. But the phone was damaged to the point that the local authorities were unable to process it.

Another two years passed, before Detective Ha Nguyen testified in Red River County during Smith's capital murder trial. Det. Nguyen was able to identify and remove the data storage chips off the motherboard of Walling's cell phone and extract its data. After four days of analysis at the Fort Worth Police Department's Digital Forensic Lab, the data was returned to the Bogota, Texas Police Department where investigators used the recovered text messages and phone calls to tie Smith to the murders.

Det. Nguyen's testimony before the Red River County jury explained the technical concepts of the forensic review of the phone and the text communications between Smith and Walling just minutes prior to the fire and deaths. Det. Nguyen's testimony was essential in Smith's conviction of capital murder just days later, according to police investigators.