Cop: Suspect talked to sister after girlfriend's body found

About two hours after Jo'Anna Bird was found stabbed to death inside her New Cassel home, her estranged boyfriend Leonardo Valdez-Cruz told his sister that he had taken a shower with Bird that morning but left the house after they got into a fight, a police investigator testified Friday.

Prosecutors have said that Valdez-Cruz, 23, of Westbury, after terrorizing Bird, 24, for months, broke into her home and tortured her to death on March 19, 2009. He is charged with first-degree murder.

Nassau County Det. Chris Faltings testified that around 3:30 p.m. on March 19, 2009, after Bird's body had been found, police investigators who had been summoned to Bird's Grand Avenue home by a 911 call from a relative were working at an impromptu command center set up in a building across the street. Some civilians, including Valdez-Cruz's sister, Aurea, were in the command center as well, he said.

Faltings said he was sitting next to Aurea Valdez-Cruz when he overheard her talking to Valdez-Cruz on a Nextel cell phone, which can act like a walkie-talkie with "push to talk" technology.

"They had both taken a shower," but got into a fight afterward and he left the house, Faltings said he heard Valdez-Cruz tell his sister during the phone conversation. "He wasn't with her anymore."

About 30 minutes later, Valdez-Cruz told his sister by phone that he was at the Hicksville train station, Faltings said. Investigators later picked him up there.

Prosecutor Madeline Singas also called an expert to testify about tracking the movement of cell phones based on where phone signals are relayed to different cell phone towers.

Det. Sgt. Devin Ross, commanding officer of the Nassau County Police Department's electronics squad, testified how cell-tower locations can determine the general area from which a cell phone is being used. He said Valdez-Cruz's phone was within range of the cell tower closest to Bird's house from 9:53 a.m. to about 1 p.m. Police have said they responded to a 911 call from a relative at 12:48 p.m.

Defense lawyer Dana Grossblatt said that precise locations of phones could not be determined by a cell tower.