SAN ANTONIO -- Type the name “Geronimo Gutierrez” into the Texas Department of Public Safety criminal history search, and you'll find a single conviction: a misdemeanor for possession of marijuana.
That’s it.
The problem is Gutierrez is a convicted murderer.
In 1999, he abducted Rick Marin of San Antonio, shot him five times with a shotgun and then burned his body.
Gutierrez is on death row.
Run a background check on him with the state, at worst, he appears to be a pot head. His criminal records are not the only records missing.
Ramon Hernandez was sentenced to death in 2002 for the San Antonio murder of Rosa Rosado.
His murder conviction is also not in the state’s database.
Guadalupe Esparza kidnapped and sexually assaulted 7-year-old Alyssa Vasquez in 1999.
He's scheduled to be executed on Wednesday, and yet there's no record of his conviction in the state's criminal database, either.
According to a recent report by the State Auditor’s Office, nearly one out of every four criminal records is incomplete, while some are completely missing for the state's database.
Thousands of Texas businesses, day cares, schools use the state’s database for criminal background checks.
"We expect the information to be valid and current," said Pasqual Gonzalez, spokesperson for the Northside Independent School District.
Northside ISD not only uses to state's database to screen potential employees, but it counts on the database to keep any potentially dangerous guests from entering a school.
"It is very frightening to us to think that the database doesn't have all of the information that we need to allow someone into our schools," Gonzalez said.
the department of public safety acknowledges the problem.
"It's a concern that we are missing information," said Skylor Hearn, assistant director of Law Enforcement Support for the DPS.
However, Hearn added there is only so much the state can do.
The state relies on the counties to submit their court records, and Hearn said the counties are not turning all of them into the state.
According to the state audit, Bexar County failed to report nearly a quarter of all its court records.
"Sometimes it's simple matter of the [computer] server being busy," said Bexar County District Clerk Donna Kay McKinney.
However, McKinney said according to her figures more than 99 percent of the county's felony court records have been turned in to the state.
County clerk Gerry Rickhoff, who's in charge of submitting the misdemeanor records for the county, said he's been turning them in, too.
Rickhoff said any missing records are mainly due to a lack of communication by the DPS.
"Often times we in Bexar County consider Austin, as far as we are concerned, might as well be New York City," Rickhoff said.
"If there is a communication issue, we welcome anyone to call us as we'll work with them to make this a better system," Hearn rebutted.
Regardless of the reason why, Mike Coffey, a human resource consultant for the Imperative Information Group, said he advises his clients not to rely on the state.
"We have been conditioned to think we are buying something from the state, so this has got to be the best there is," Coffey said.
But he says the state’s database is not the best, which is why when Coffey runs a criminal background check he searches every county, individually, where the person has lived and worked.
It takes more time and more money, but if murder records are not in the state's database, Coffey said just think what else might be missing.
"If all the backgrounds you run are with DPS, you are going to have something bad happen eventually," he said.
