Note that, only in the picture of this man, do they tell the real reason why he died: Malnutrition. Obviously because California sex offender residency laws forced him into homelessness.5-28-2010 California:
SANTA ANA – Someone found the nude and grease-smeared body between a trailer and a wall next to some auto parts at a Cadillac dealership on north Bush Street early in the morning of Sept. 23, 1974.
An autopsy revealed that Frances E. Esqueda, 54, had been strangled with her own slip.
Santa Ana homicide detectives in 1974 called the slaying "a crime of opportunity," believing that Esqueda might have been accosted by chance as she walked near McLean Cadillac to her home on Cypress Avenue.
Detectives at the time could not determine if she was the victim of a robbery, and said only the killer knew if she was carrying a purse at the time she was attacked.
They questioned 25 to 30 people back in 1974, according to news accounts, but never made an arrest.
But this month, Santa Ana P.D. cold case detectives believed that after 35 years, they were finally close on the heels of Esqueda's killer.
In February, detectives Louie Martinez and Domingo Cabrera submitted items of evidence recovered from the crime scene to the Orange County Crime Lab for analysis.
Forensic scientist Heather Williams was then able to isolate foreign DNA from blood found on Esqueda's slip: apparently, she had fought for her life and had drawn blood from her killer.
That DNA was then compared with known samples in the California Attorney General's database.
In mid-May, the detectives heard they had a hit: the DNA that detectives had preserved in 1974 was matched in 2010 to an ex-convict named Gerald Gay Kifer.
Carbrera soon learned that Kifer was a known sexual predator who had been a transient most of his life, who had arrests dating back to 1963, and who had served at least two terms in prison for sexual offenses.
He also found out that Kifer had been a registered sex offender who might have been living in the Santa Ana area at the time Esqueda was accosted and murdered.
The detectives had identified their murder suspect, now they had to find him.
It didn't take long.
Official records revealed that Kifer died of unknown causes in Los Angeles County on June 11, 2007. He was about 69 years old.
That news was bittersweet for the two detectives.
"There would have been nothing more pleasurable than to slap the 'cuffs on him and bring him to justice," Martinez said.
Santa Ana police Sgt. Robert Wooding said the case was solved by a combination of the tenacity of the detectives in his office and the passion of the forensic experts with the crime lab.
"Who would have thought at the time that evidence saved so long ago could lead to the solving of a case 35 years later?" Wooding said.
On Tuesday, Martinez and Cabrera drove up to a residence in Orange to tell some of Esqueda's surviving relatives what had happened to their beloved aunt. Her two brothers, including Manuel Esqueda, for whom a school is named after in Santa Ana, are dead, but several nieces and nephews still live in Orange County.
"It was really good to hear from the detectives and to know that they had solved this case," said nephew Joe Esqueda, 71. "This gives everyone in the family peace of mind."
He said his aunt's murder happened so long ago that everyone had almost completely forgotten about it.
"My uncle and my dad never talked about it much," Joe Esqueda said. "It was too painful. We were aware that something violent had happened, but it was kept secret from us as far as the details were concerned."
He said his aunt was born in Kansas, but migrated to Orange County with the rest of her family. She was a co-owner in two little family stores with her mother.
"She was a good person, strong-willed and independent," Joe Esqueda said.
Even though the person who committed this crime has already passed on, it was still good to hear," he added.
"We know who did it, and he is in the hands of God," Joe Esqueda said. "His judgment didn't come in this world but it will certainly hit him in the next." ..Source.. by LARRY WELBORN, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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