DNA on McDonald’s cup links Milwaukee woman to husband’s 2020 execution-style killing

Cassandra Hult and Jose Santiago fought a lot during their short but turbulent marriage.

Santiago would turn up dead in a Milwaukee cemetery after an especially intense argument with his wife years ago.

Hult was questioned several times by police, but wasn’t arrested. She eventually left the state and carved out a new life for herself in the Southwest.

Prosecutors say in court papers Hult confessed to her house mates and a new lover she was the one who pulled the trigger, and killed Santiago, 27.

Hult, 28, was in a Milwaukee County courtroom Monday, some four years after Santiago’s execution-style slaying, answering to charges she shot her husband in the back of the head and left for him dead.

She is charged with first-degree reckless homicide. The charge against Hult also includes a modifier for use of a dangerous weapon, which means she can be subject to additional penalties if she is convicted.

During a preliminary hearing Monday, Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey A. Wagner found there was sufficient probable cause to bind the case against Hult over for trial.

Hult pleaded not guilty through her attorney, Theodore O’Reilly, of Milwaukee.

Her bond was set at $500,000. She remained locked up at the Milwaukee County Jail.

Hult’s next court appearance is set for July 10.

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Here’s what authorities believe happened:

According to a May 6 criminal complaint, a jogger spotted a black Lincoln LS as she ran through St. Adalbert Cemetery on March 22, 2020. A man was sitting in the driver’s seat. She didn’t think much of it and kept going.

The next day, she jogged through the cemetery in the early afternoon and saw the vehicle again in the same spot. She went through the cemetery around 6 p.m. and, again, it appeared to not have moved.

The jogger approached the car window and saw the person inside was unresponsive and called 911.

The man had been shot in the back of the head. A spent casing from a .380 pistol was found in the rear driver’s side seat. 

Milwaukee police Detective Jake Puschnig testified Monday that forensic testing conducted on two McDonald’s cups found in the car turned up fingerprints and DNA for both Santiago and Hult.

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Hult told investigators she and Santiago had been married for about a year and a half, and that they often fought.

One of those fights erupted on the morning of March 22, 2020.

She said they argued that day when she found texts on Santiago’s phone with other women and confronted him. Hult told investigators Santiago kicked her out of the car, and that afterwards she went to stay at her grandmother’s home on Milwaukee’s north side.

She mentioned nothing about going to McDonald’s.

Cellphone tower records show both Santiago and Hult’s phones were in the same general area at the time the jogger first spotted Santiago in his car, according to the complaint.

Hult also gave inconsistent accounts on what else she did that day, the complaint said.

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Hult resurfaced a year later in Buckeye, Arizona, where she had been with a woman and her daughter. Hult got into a heated argument on Sept. 27, 2021 with the woman, who told Hult to leave. She left, but the war of words continued on FaceTime.

During the argument, Hult threatened to kill the woman and blurted out that she had killed her husband back in Milwaukee, the criminal complaint said.

The woman’s daughter also told Buckeye detectives Hult confessed to her she executed her husband and left him on the south side, according to the complaint. 

On May 2, a man told police he had met Hult in Las Vegas in January 2022 and that they quickly began a romantic relationship. Shortly afterwards, she moved in with him in Sacramento, California. While he was in a relationship with her, Hult confessed “multiple times” that she killed her husband, the criminal complaint said.

A warrant for Hult’s arrest was issued May 6, court records show.