A Hawaii man was detained after DNA testing assisted detectives in identifying him as a suspect in the 1992 death of a 15-year-old girl who was stolen from a bus stop in Northern California, raped, and killed, according to officials.
Karen Stitt was waiting for a bus in Sunnyvale when she went missing in the early hours of September 3, 1982. According to the Mercury News, a delivery truck driver found her nude corpse in some shrubs 100 yards away from the bus stop.
Gary Gene Ramirez, 75, has been detained in connection with the 1982 killing of 15-year-old Karen Stitt.
Captain Fabian Monge, 408-220-5144, is the media contact.
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— Sunnyvale Police Department (@SunnyvaleDPS) August 9, 2022
Sunnyvale police arrested Gary Ramirez, 75, last week in Maui after his DNA matched the blood from Karen’s leather jacket and the 4-foot cinder brick wall where the perpetrator left her after stabbing her 59 times, according to the newspaper.
Ramirez is still being held in a Maui prison, awaiting an extradition hearing to transport him to California on Wednesday. It was unclear if he had engaged a counsel who could speak on his behalf.
According to the Santa Clara district attorney’s office, once Ramirez is extradited, he will be charged with murder, abduction, and rape. If convicted, he risks life in jail with no chance of release.
“There is a person, heartache, and a mystery behind every old murder case in every big police agency,” Santa Clara County DA Jeff Rosen stated. “Thanks to breakthroughs in forensic technology and a detective who would never, ever give up, the mystery of Karen Stitt’s death has been solved.”
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Palo Alto resident Karen Stitt, 15,
ATTORNEY DISTRICT OF SANTA CLARA
Cold case detectives in Santa Clara County claim they employed DNA technology connected to family tree genealogy, the same investigative procedure that resulted to the Golden State Killer’s capture and guilty plea in 2018.
Sunnyvale cops Detective Matt Hutchison said that he apprehended Ramirez, a guy with a damaged hip who seemed stunned and could only exclaim, “Oh my god.”
According to investigators, Ramirez, a former insect exterminator, had no criminal record. Rudy Ramirez, his elder brother who also lives on Maui, said he can’t believe his younger brother could do such a heinous murder.
“I’ve never seen him become upset or aggressive,” Ramirez’s sibling told the publication. “He’d never harm a fly.”
Hutchison collaborated with a genealogist three years ago, who reduced the DNA down to four brothers. Hutchison then tracked down one of Gary Ramirez’s children and acquired a DNA sample, which revealed that the suspect was their father with a high likelihood, he claimed. Then, using a search warrant, detectives swabbed Gary Ramirez’s lips for a DNA sample, which a crime lab verified matched the DNA recovered at the murder site.
“I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t because I didn’t want to wake up the hotel,” Hutchinson recalled when he got the email with the DNA match. “So I simply paused for a minute to contemplate.”
He opened his laptop and clicked on Karen’s picture.
“I took a brief glimpse at her snapshot and immediately told her, ‘We did it,’” he said.