HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – A decaying corpse sat inside the trunk of a car for five days in a Harris County Sheriff's Office storage lot, Channel 2 Investigates has learned.
Vittorio Gavin, 25, of Galveston, died from multiple gunshot wounds, according to the Harris County medical examiner.
"I could have had an open casket for him. Now, his body's been decomposed because it's been sitting in the trunk of that car," Daisy Morales, Gavin's wife, said.
Morales owned the car with her husband. She said she is still trying to learn the details about how her husband died.
The car was first discovered near the 12500 block of the Hardy Toll Road. It was towed to the Harris County impound facility at 310 Fisher Road in Humble.
The car sat in the secure facility Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and part of Tuesday before a crime scene unit processed the car and discovered the body, a Harris County Sheriff's Office spokesperson said.
The car has been connected to a crime scene in North Harris County on Nov. 5. The incident, one of two blocks apart, that included a non-fatal shooting, remains under investigation, the Harris County Sheriffs Office said.
"The vehicle was being preserved for evidence processing by crime scene investigators. We had to either get a search warrant or the vehicle owner's consent," Ryan Sullivan, a Harris County Sheriff's Office spokesperson, said.
"Believe me, in 34 years of doing what I do, it's not a particularly difficult burden to get a magistrate to issue a search warrant, so the notion that they had to wait five days, like they say, in East Texas, that dog don't hunt," Local 2 legal analyst Brian Wice said.
Morales contends she gave consent by way of telephone while she was out of town before signing a consent-to-search form when she returned.
"I said, 'That's fine, break a window or do something. I just need to know whose blood is in that car,'" Morales said.