By: Joelle Luo
According to officials that were assigned to a case about three women and a teenager that were killed from 1980 to 1995, the killer was finally caught due to recent inventions that allow police to examine suspects’ DNA.
The case was unsolved for 40 years after detectives couldn’t find any leads as to who the murderer of four innocent people could be. However, thanks to new technology that allows the police to analyze people’s DNA and fingerprints, they were able to find the culprit.
The man who killed three women and a teenage girl in California was a 75-year-old living in Texas.
The authorities disclosed this last Friday.
Detectives from Los Angeles and Inglewood, California, police departments traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, to arrest the man, Billy Ray Richardson, whom the police linked to the murders or Kari Lenander, Beverly Cruse, her sister, Debra Cruse, and Trina Wilson.
The DNA evidence the police had collected helped tie the four serious crimes to Richardson, although they didn’t elaborate on what new evidence had led to him. It was unclear whether Richardson knew the victims personally.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Richardson was charged with four counts of murder and related charges last Thursday.
The Los Angeles district attorney, George Gascón said, “I cannot imagine the pain that these families have endured. Their loss is immeasurable. We hope that together we can bring justice to the families who have endured so much and have waited years for this moment.”
Although the police tried reaching surviving family members of the four victims, all forms of contact that they tried were unsuccessful.
In 2001, cold case detectives in Los Angeles reopened an investigation about the murder of Ms. Lenander, who was killed when she was only 15-years-old. Her body was found in a neighborhood in South Los Angeles on July 26, 1980, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.
In 2012, the Los Angeles City Council approved a $50,000 reward for any information leading to the identification, arrest, and conviction of anyone responsible for her murder.
At a news conference in 2012, when the reward was announced, Detective Tim Marcia of the Los Angeles Police Department said investigators had some “significant leads” about the murder, but they needed a name to figure out who actually committed the crime.
On the night Lenander was murdered, she and her best friend, Toni Garfield, were alone at her house getting ready for a party. They decided to go dancing and hitchhiked on their way back.
They were picked up by a white man, who said his name was Ken and that he was visiting from Canada. Garfield was dropped off at home, but Lenander said she wanted to “keep partying” with Ken.
The two girls separated at around 10 p.m., and Lenander’s body was found five hours later.
Detective Marcia said there was a big break in the case after a DNA profile determined the race of the suspect to be Black. However, it is unclear how much of a role that test played in identifying Richardson, who is also Black.
A few months before Lenander’s murder, the bodies of Beverly and Debra Cruse were found on March 05, 1980 by their brother, who visited their West Los Angeles apartment after not hearing from them in several days. They were both found shot in the head.
More than 15 years after these tragic events, Ms. Wilson was found near Inglewood park on December 31, 1995. However, the circumstances of her death are not clear.
In 2012, the Inglewood City Council adopted a resolution offering $25,000 for information that could lead to the identification, arrest, and conviction of those responsible for her murder, who has now been established as Billy Ray Richardson.