DNA links to A Rape in 1979 : Over 40 years later, DNA results have connected the rape and murder of a 17 year old girl of Riverside County to a man detectives identified early on in the criminal investigation.
Esther Gonzalez was Raped and Killed in 1979
Esther Gonzalez was heading from her parents’ house in Beaumont to her sister’s house in Banning on February 9, 1979. But she never got there. The next day she was discovered raped and beaten to death, her body lying in a heap of snow by Highway 243 near Banning as the police report had it.
DNA links to A Rape in 1979 (A California Teen)
“At times perhaps I wished that I would have joined her,” said sister Liz Gonzalez. “If I knew that will happen, I would follow her.”
The man who found her was a man that deputies said was confrontational when making the call, according to the Riverside County District Attorney’s office. The respondent told investigators that he had discovered her body at the sheriff’s station in Banning and told the officers that he could not distinguish the gender of the body.
A few days later, detectives found out that the man was Lewis Randolph ‘Randy’ Williamson. After that they said to him take the polygraph and he did. He died, and as a result, he was acquitted in the case, so claimed the prosecution.
True to that sentiment Liz said: ‘I never let it go because I thought if it was me my sister would never let it go’.
But years later investigators are still actively investigating the case, and have entered the sample collected at the crime scene into the CODIS database. Last year, homicide detectives with cold cases sent parts of the investigation to Othram, Inc., a Texas-based corporation that helps crack cold cases through investigative genetic genealogy, which incorporates biologic samples of a suspect with genealogy databases like ancestry sites.
Lewis Randolph The man who passed the polygraph Test
Even though Williamson happened to be always acquitted by investigators after the polygraph test upon which he was administered, he was never eliminated through DNA since the invention was not existing at the time of the 1979 murder.
Williamson knew Eddie Gonzalez, Esther’s brother, from high school days.
“I was pretty shocked because I never knew he could do that” said Eddie.
Last month last year, a crime analyst working in Riverside County and responsible for tracking criminal cases, decided to reopen the case involving DNA proof that was collected 45 years ago.
Williamson’s death was in 2014 in Florida. As a result, the officers could only take a blood sample during the post mortem examination with detectives at Broward County Sheriff’s office. The sample was taken to the California Department of Justice, and this is because specialists established that the DNA was that of Williamson.
’I wish the guy would have stayed alive and served his life sentence,’ Eddie said.
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