Special Assignments And Investigations

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ― A local man is working to make sure a nearly four-decade murder mystery is kept alive, but he is now wondering why all the evidence isn't being utilized in the cold case.

Richard Shelby is a retired lieutenant from the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. He now lives in the foothills, more than 30 years after he first donned his uniform as a rookie.

"At that time the Sheriff's department was a lot smaller, maybe 300 people," he said.

He's tackled numerous cases in his career, but one cold case he never covered as a young deputy haunts him every day: the 1970 murder of Judith Hakari.

Hakari, a 23-year-old nurse at Sutter Hospital in Sacramento, left work late one night and never made it to her apartment. Investigators believe she was abducted from her complex parking lot.

Almost two months later, her naked body was discovered in a wooded area near Colfax.

"Somebody dug in the hole and they found Judy Kahari," Richard said. "That's where she was buried.

Judith was brutally raped and murdered. No arrests were ever made, but Shelby says a witness may have seen three men with her lifeless body at the same burial site just hours after her murder.

"Two of them were digging a hole," Richard said. "One of them saw the guy coming and the truck of the car was open so he pushed it. It wouldn't shut so they had to jump on it and knocked it down and shut it."

A 1970 composite sketch was released in local newspapers of three possible suspects. Investigators back then thought the three mystery men may be responsible for not only the murder of Judith, but two other Sacramento women that year.

"I'd like to see it solved," Richard said.

He says an important clue was buried with Hakari that could reveal the three men in the composite sketch.

"I learned that they actually have DNA evidence off that blanket she was wrapped in," he said.

Over the years, Richard contacted the current lead investigator with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department but says they refuse to do a DNA test on the blanket. Richard believes the Sheriff's department is not interested in spending the money on a case that's so old.

"No, it's not a budget thing, it's a technology thing," said Sgt. Tim Curran of the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department.

Investigators say even after all these years, the case is still active. They confirmed that a sample of DNA was taken from that blanket, but it's never been processed.

What's the hold up?

"There's such a small amount of DNA at such a degraded level that technology hasn't caught up to where we can actually sent it out and have it tested without destroying it," Sgt. Curran said.

Dr. Ruth Ballard, a DNA expert at UC Davis and Sacramento State, says there could be enough DNA evidence to find and prosecute the mystery men.

"You get DNA from several people in a sample sometimes," she said. "You could upload it into the national database… which contains DNA profiles from all different types of criminals."

The problem is that the murder happened in 1970, and "DNA wasn't really an issue" at the time, Dr. Ballard said. The blanket may have been improperly handled.

"Contamination could be an issue," Dr. Ballard added. "Who knows whether or not the investigators used gloves when they handled the evidence, things like that."

"Depending on how the evidence was stored and whether it was stored well, there may not be any DNA left," she added.

Not all hope is lost. Investigators say there may still be enough DNA on that blanket to find Judith's killers, but like a "Hail Mary" pass, you may only get one shot.

"If you extract the DNA now, you do the analysis now and you don't get anything, you could probably use up all the evidence and then… it's gone," Dr. Ballard said.

Ballard says in just a few years, technology could advance to the point where they could get a working sample, but testing it now might eliminate all DNA, and all hope of a conviction.

After almost four decades, Richard just wants these three men captured.

"I'd like to see them all taken care of before I'm long gone," he said.

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