Jul 3, 2009 8:13 pm US/Pacific
Sacramento Police Dept. Cracks 20-Year-Old Case
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ―
An elderly woman was raped and murdered in her home, and her killer has been on the loose for 20 years. The case went cold for years, until DNA evidence helped investigators make an arrest.
"She was all by herself, it was just horrible," Rudy Aguilar says.
20 years ago Rudy Aguilar was in high school. The memory of the brutal murder of his elderly neighbor is still clear today.
"She was such a sweet, sweet lady," says Rudy.
Rudy remembers the grandmotherly image of 80-year-old Sophia McAllister who was raped and murdered in her home.
20 years ago neighbors called the police to her home after not seeing her for a couple of days.
"Once the officers gained access to the residence it appeared the home had been ransacked and there was significant trauma to her upper body," explains Rudy.
For Sacramento Police, the case went unsolved but not forgotten.
"They had no visible leads, no suspect to go on, nothing to go on for 20 years," Rudy tells CBS13.
In 2005 the cold case unit entered DNA evidence from the murder into the state and national database only to find no matches.
As of January of this year, anyone booked into the Sacramento County Jail on felony charges has to submit a DNA sample. That policy turned out to be pivotal in cracking this case.
56-year-old Donald Carter was booked on felony charges; possession of crack cocaine. His DNA was a match for the suspect in the 1989 murder. At the time, Carter lived just a block and half from t he murder victim.
After two decades, science caught up with the suspected killer.
This is quite a streak for the Sacramento Police Department; they solved about a dozen cold cases this year.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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