Greater than 40 years after the bare physique of a 15-year-old Palo Alto woman was discovered tied up and lined in blood close to a bus cease, the person accountable for the long-unsolved slaying was sentenced to life in jail.
Gary Ramirez, 78, of Hawaii was sentenced Monday after pleading no contest to the brutal 1982 rape and homicide of Karen Stitt, the Santa Clara County district legal professional’s workplace introduced. He’s eligible for parole after 25 years.
The sufferer was sexually assaulted and stabbed 59 instances in her neck, chest, stomach and again, in keeping with a health worker’s report. The killer left his blood and semen on her physique, however investigators had been unable to determine a suspect on the time.
The case went chilly for many years till new DNA know-how and a group tip led investigators to arrest Ramirez at his Maui residence in 2022.
“Over 40 years in the past, Karen Stitt misplaced her life, however she was not forgotten,” Santa Clara County Dist. Atty. Jeff Rosen mentioned in a press release Monday. “Right now, due to a devoted detective, a persistent prosecutor, and our crime lab, the particular person accountable is behind bars.”
Karen spent the final night of her life strolling round Sunnyvale along with her 17-year-old boyfriend, who left her at a bus cease round midnight so she might journey again to Palo Alto, prosecutors mentioned.
The boyfriend “later informed police that he felt dangerous about leaving her alone, however he didn’t wish to get in hassle together with his mother and father for being dwelling late,” in keeping with a press release filed by Sunnyvale Police Det. Matthew Hutchison within the paperwork to arrest Ramirez.
A truck driver discovered her physique within the bushes beneath a cinder-block wall close to the bus cease round 10:45 the next morning. The grime and leaves round her had been disturbed, indicating that she continued to wrestle after being left there, Hutchison wrote.
By 2000, detectives had been ready to make use of new DNA testing know-how to construct a profile of the suspect primarily based on a bloodstain discovered on the wall and the fluids discovered on the woman’s physique.
The profile didn’t match her boyfriend, and he was dominated out as a suspect. Sadly, it additionally didn’t match anybody in a nationwide DNA crime database, and the case went chilly as soon as once more.
That was, till 2019 when Sunnyvale police used a tip to find out that considered one of 4 Fresno brothers might need dedicated the crime and started a genealogical hunt to match the crime scene DNA to a member of the family, prosecutors mentioned.
A DNA pattern obtained from Ramirez’s daughter offered a breakthrough and established Ramirez because the prime suspect in April 2022.
He was arrested at his dwelling in Makawao, Maui, in August 2022 and extradited to Santa Clara County, the place he was charged with homicide, rape, kidnapping and being armed with a lethal weapon in the course of the fee of a felony. He pleaded no contest in February.
A number of of Karen’s family and friends members attended Monday’s sentencing listening to to share their continued grief in regards to the ugly killing and present that she has not been forgotten, prosecutors mentioned.
“Justice is a tough factor,” Robin Morris, the woman’s aunt, informed the district legal professional’s workplace in a February cellphone interview. “He’s lived his whole life, and my niece didn’t get that privilege.”
