The Check That Gave Him Away

On the day Carmen Banderas was kidnapped from Fullerton College and driven around by the suspect, he began asking her questions about money. He wanted to know what funds she had that he could get his hands on. When he asked where she banked, she told him that she and her husband had a checking account at Barclays Bank in Fullerton.

The suspect replied, “We’ll go somewhere else.”

He drove her to the Barclays Bank on Katella Avenue in Orange and ordered her to write a check for cash in the amount of ninety dollars. She complied. He had chosen that amount because it was slightly less than the balance in the account. After warning her to smile and act pleasant or he would shoot her, he placed the check in the canister at the drive-through window.

The teller accepted the check but told them they would need to come inside, since the Orange branch would have to verify the account with the Fullerton branch. The suspect pulled forward toward the front of the bank, but he would not go inside. Banderas tried to persuade him to enter, even offering to walk in with him, but he refused. He attempted the drive-through again with the same teller and received the same response. Frustrated, he drove away, leaving the check behind.

During the investigation, we recovered that check and submitted it for fingerprint analysis. There was a clear print on it that did not belong to anyone at the bank and did not belong to Banderas.

Once the suspect was arrested and fingerprinted, we compared his prints to the one on the check. It matched his right thumb perfectly. That single piece of evidence became a powerful tool in securing Kenneth Hulbert’s conviction.

He later raped her, left her for dead, and drove her car to a location in north Orange County, where he set it on fire in an attempt to destroy evidence. DNA testing was not available to us in those days, but fingerprints were, and in this case they spoke loudly.

Carmen Banderas proved to be an extraordinary witness, with an almost perfect recall of the terrifying ordeal she endured.