After nearly 40 years, Sacramento police say DNA technology has pointed them to a suspect in the 1981 killing of a 17 year old girl whose body was found beside a California road.
According to People, a witness found the body of Mary, a high school sophomore, on a rural stretch of road in North Sacramento just before 8:00 am on January 15, 1981. She had been stabbed.
Police said the Sacramento Police Department never gave up on the case even though it went cold for decades. Investigators used DNA and family tree research to connect a suspect to the crime and identified a man named Vernon. Police said Vernon was himself killed in Sacramento in 1982, a little over a year after Mary’s death.
Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn said the case will not end with the suspect facing the justice system, but that the decades of work by investigators, forensic staff and the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office, in his words, “has resulted in what we hope will be closure” for Mary’s family.
Mary’s sister, Esther, told ABC10 she was thankful. She said investigators worked very hard to find out who was responsible and thanked everyone who worked on the case.
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