Wednesday 10 August 2022 06:40 PM Hawaii man arrested in cold case hunt for killer after girl was raped and ... trends now
A 75-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the 40-year-old cold-case murder of a 15-year-old girl who was raped and stabbed 59 times in Palo Alto, California, after police matched his DNA to blood found on the victim's leather jacket.
The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office announced on Tuesday that Gary Gene Ramirez had been arrested in Hawaii in connection with the grisly murder of Karen Stitt, the teen who was raped and stabbed at a Northern California bus stop.
Ramirez was arrested at his home in Makawao, Maui, on August 2md and will be arraigned on charges of murder, kidnapping and rape once he is extradited to Santa Clara County.
His next court date in the extradition process is on Wednesday; if convicted, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Stitt was murdered on the night of Sept. 2, 1982, near a bus stop in Sunnyvale. She was last seen by her teenage boyfriend near the stop after they took a walk together.
Karen Stitt was 15-years-old and visiting her boyfriend when she was brutally murdered at a California bus stop late at night
Gary Gene Ramirez, pictured above, approximately 40 years ago, has been arrested in connection with the killing and charged with murder, kidnapping, and rape
Stitt had been visiting her 17-year-old boyfriend in Sunnyvale after taking the bus from her home in Palo Alto. The two took a casual stroll through his neighborhood before parting ways.
Stitt's boyfriend said he was worried about being grounded for missing his midnight curfew, so he headed home after seeing her walk toward the bus stop.
Her body was left naked behind a blood-stained cinderblock wall and was found the next morning by truck driver Steven Bound; Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety was eventually called.
Officers responding to the scene found Stitt naked with her wrists bound behind her back with her shirt and her jacket tied around her ankle.
Medical Examiner Dr. Angelo Ozoa concluded she had been violently stabbed 59 times across her neck, chest, abdomen and back.
According to the report, Stitt was stabbed 18 times in the heart, had 10 stab wounds on her lungs, wounds to her neck punctured her larynx,
