More than 20 years after a 57-year-old woman was pulled from the Flint River, a Saginaw man has quietly admitted he will not fight the charges that he killed her.
Jason Robert Cabello, 48, pleaded no contest this week in Saginaw County court in the 2003 death of Jeanette Wilton, whose body was found in the river near her home on Feb. 22, 2003. Sentencing is set for June 1.
Plea and counts
Cabello entered a no-contest plea to one count of second-degree murder and one count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, according to CBS Detroit. The deal effectively wraps up a criminal case that sat cold for more than two decades before new forensic work pushed it forward.
Autopsy and original investigation
An autopsy found that Wilton had been strangled, stabbed multiple times, and suffered blunt-force trauma to her head and face, according to a press release from the Michigan Attorney General’s Office. For years, investigators had little to show for their efforts beyond a brutal crime scene and unanswered questions.
The Michigan State Police’s Third District Cold Case Team reopened the investigation in 2021, taking another run at the aging evidence as DNA technology continued to improve.
How the case was cracked
Detectives say the break came when evidence was reanalyzed using newer DNA methods funded by a cold-case grant and sent to a private lab. That work led to a forensic-grade DNA profile that investigators say pointed to Cabello in 2024, according to Forensic Magazine.
Western Michigan University’s Cold Case Program was also involved, with students helping digitize old files and build case timelines that assisted Michigan State Police detectives as they rebuilt the investigation.
What a no-contest plea means
In Michigan, a no-contest (nolo contendere) plea is treated like a guilty plea for sentencing purposes, but it has limited use in some later civil proceedings, according to the Michigan Court Rules. In practical terms, Cabello is not disputing the charges, and the case now heads straight to sentencing.
His formal sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 1, per CBS Detroit.
Next steps
“The breakthrough brought long-awaited answers in a case that had remained unsolved for more than 20 years,” Col. James F. Grady II of the Michigan State Police said, per CBS Detroit. Officials say they hope the outcome offers some measure of closure to Wilton’s family after years of uncertainty.
The attorney general’s release also asks anyone who believes they were assaulted by Cabello to contact Detective Sgt. Bill Arndt with the Michigan State Police.
