Aug 14, 2006 4:46 pm US/Pacific
Florida Man Sought In Sacramento Killing
LAUDERHILL, Fla. (AP) ―
A Florida man was being held Monday in the 1972 slaying of a 12-year-old girl in a Sacramento suburb, authorities said.
Monday's scheduled arraignment in Sacramento for James Calvin Gaines, 57, was delayed until Aug. 21, said Lana Wyant, a spokeswoman for the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office.
Gaines does not have an attorney and has yet to enter a plea. He is being held without bail on a murder charge, Wyant said.
The girl, Shannon Ritter, was baby-sitting Margarita Doporto's four children at the woman's apartment in Rancho Cordova on Sept. 30, 1972, when Doporto arrived home about 1:30 a.m. and found her front door ajar.
Ritter had been strangled and drowned in an upstairs bathtub, according to police.
Gaines, who lived in the same apartment complex, was arrested briefly after being identified as the man a neighbor saw with Ritter inside the apartment earlier that night, according to a search warrant filed in April in Broward County by California authorities.
Gaines gave conflicting alibis and smoked the same cigarettes as those found inside the apartment, the warrant said. There was too little evidence to charge him, however, and the case grew cold.
In February, the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department took a fresh look at the case.
While authorities declined to comment on what evidence led to Gaines' re-arrest, the recent search warrant indicates that hair found 34 years ago at the scene of the killing might have provided a suspect's DNA.
In April, detectives showed up at Gaines' home in Lauderhill, Fla., with a search warrant and collected his DNA for comparison, said Sgt. Tim Curran, a Sacramento County sheriff's spokesman. Gaines was arrested Aug. 5 and is being held without bail.
Ritter's parents are dead, but her sister said the unsolved killing haunted them for years.
"It was absolutely devastating to them," said Sue Cooke, 49. "They just couldn't get past it."
Gaines has lived in his Lauderhill home since 1995 and had most recently worked as a real estate agent.
He spent four years in a California prison starting in 1975 for kidnapping, attempted rape and attempted homicide, according to the search warrant. In Florida, Gaines has been arrested at least five times on charges that include possession of marijuana, extortion and DUI.
(© 2006 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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