FORT WAYNE – About the only piece of evidence the prosecution didn’t have in the murder case against 20-year-old Patrick Fluker was an eyewitness testifying that he was seen shooting 29-year-old Tiffany Mendez in the head.

After hearing and seeing the mountain of evidence the state did have, however, an Allen Superior Court jury convicted Fluker of murder, receiving stolen auto parts and using a firearm in the commission of the murder. The verdicts came Thursday at the end of a couple of hours of deliberation at the end of the three-day trial.

The body of Mendez, a mother of two, was found mostly naked with a bullet wound between her eyes in a wooded area near the General Electric plant. Police were called to the scene in the early-morning hours of Sept. 3, 2010, after a nearby resident reported hearing multiple gunshots.

Allen County prosecutors – Chief Criminal Counsel Steve Godfrey and Deputy Prosecutor Stacey Speith – showed the jury the 9 mm handgun used to kill Mendez. It was found with Fluker’s fingerprints and DNA on it atop a building on which Fluker was urinating when police found him.

They showed the jury the box of ammunition, tossed alongside the gun, that matched casings found at the scene and a receipt from its recent purchase inside Fluker’s pocket. The jury saw a video of Fluker’s friend buying the ammunition at a local Walmart the evening before the murder. They saw Fluker take the bag with the box of 9 mm Winchester bullets from her and carry it around the store, captured by the many surveillance cameras recording his every move.

A Fort Wayne police officer testified that he found Fluker walking in the area of the General Electric factory on Broadway. Fluker matched the description of a man seen leaving the area after gunshots were heard. When the officer took him into custody, Fluker’s first words, without prompting, were that he hadn’t done anything to anybody.

Prosecutors showed the jury DNA profiles for Fluker and Mendez found on the gun and inside the stolen car he had been driving. They heard his odd story to police that night about how three men he did not know picked him up in a white truck and then gave him the 2000 dark blue Cadillac for no real reason.

And they heard little from the defense, with attorney Michelle Kraus relying solely on cross-examination of witnesses about the forensic evidence and her closing argument.

Fluker did not testify.

Fluker’s family and friends were quiet after the verdict was read, but one woman went outside the courtroom and collapsed to the floor in the hallway. Others cried as they left the courtroom.

Fluker faces 45 to 65 years in prison on the murder charge, plus an additional five years for using a firearm. The charge related to the theft of the Cadillac, which occurred in late August 2010, could net an additional year or two. Allen Superior Court Judge John Surbeck scheduled sentencing for early next month.

rgreen@jg.net