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TruTV tells story of girl's murder

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By TODD LESKANIC

tleskanic@tampatrib.com

Published: October 30, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - A local criminal case will go national tonight when the popular show "Forensic Files" airs a profile of the investigation into the 2002 murder of Joshan Ashbrook.

The episode will debut at 10 p.m. on truTV and air again at 2 a.m. Saturday.

Show producers visited Pasco County in January to conduct interviews.

The show will tell viewers how DNA and other forensic evidence led investigators to Ashbrook's killer, a middle-age drifter named Phillup Partin. Partin, 44, was convicted of first-degree murder last year and sentenced to death. He is on death row.

Ashbrook, 16, was a habitual runaway whose body was found in a wooded area off Shady Hills Road on Aug 1, 2002. Her throat had been gashed and her neck broken. Nine days later, Partin left his daughter with a woman in Wauchula and fled the state.

Investigators tracked him to Fayetteville, N.C., where they arrested him more than a year after the slaying.

Key forensic evidence presented at trial included a hair embedded in a gash on Ashbrook's hand. Tests showed that the hair belonged to Partin.
Bloodstains found in the room where Partin was staying contained Ashbrook's DNA. Moldings of tire tracks found near Ashbrook's body likely were made by the tires of the red Ford F-150 Partin was driving.

The truck was abandoned at a Walmart in Plant City.

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