Karen Stitt It was an ordinary Thursday evening.
The young girl, who lives in California, USA, spent her evening hours playing mini golf in Sunnyvale with her boyfriend David Woods. The young couple then played arcade in a 24-hour market.
The two lovers had to leave later in the night to return to their homes.
Having recently moved to California from Pitsburgh, Pennsylvania, 15-year-old Stitt lives with her father and older brother and attends Palo Alto High School.
As always, he had to catch the last bus that day to return to Palo Alto, about 16 kilometers from Sunnyvale. Woods, who was 17 at the time, was allowed to go out until midnight. So he had to go home soon.
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Woods dropped Stitt at the bus stop on El Camino Real and hurried home. The calendars showed the date of September 2, 1982. After that day, no one saw Karen Stitt alive again.
The young girl’s dead body was found early the next morning by the driver of a transport vehicle. 30 meters from the bus stop, the bloodstained briquette lay alone against a wall. This blood was thought to belong to the murderer.
Stitt was not wearing his clothes when he was found. His hands were tied behind his back. The person who tied it had used the striped shirt on the girl as a rope. His leather jacket was wrapped around his left ankle.
In the autopsy, it was determined that she was raped and stabbed to death in 59 places.
Karen Stitt
HE WAS SUSPECTED AT THE FIRST BUT…
this is terrible murder remained unsolved for almost 40 years. California police had no clue who the killer might be. The small amount of evidence available was also useless.
The strongest evidence was blood samples taken from the wall and Stitt’s jacket, but these samples did not provide a match in the databases used by the police.
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Stitt’s boyfriend Woods, who had been number one on the suspect list for many years, was also cleared by a DNA test in 2000. After all, Stitt’s grandmother had decided years ago, after meeting Woods, that the boy didn’t have the strength or “physical maturity” to commit such a horrific crime. The police couldn’t find any other suspects besides him…
THE KILLER IS OUT IN HAWAII
Stitt’s family and friends finally got justice last week.
The Santa Clara Attorney’s Office announced on August 9 that Stitt’s killer was caught in Hawaii.
in the statement Gary Ramirez It was stated that the suspect named was taken into custody at his home in Maui the previous week. Murder, kidnapping and murder of Ramirez rape an indictment was prepared.
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Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a written statement, “Behind each of the old murder files in the warehouses of major police departments lies a human, a heartbreak, and a mystery.”
“The mystery of Karen Stitt’s death has been solved thanks to advances in forensic science and a detective who never gives up.”
That was detective Matthew Hutchison. Born and raised in Sunnyvale, Detective Hutchison has been following the murder of Karen Stitt since childhood. After joining the police force, he worked for years to solve this murder. Hutchison’s biggest supporter in this process was Rob Baker, who served as the prosecutor in charge of unsolved cases at the Santa Clara District Attorney’s Office.
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ONE OF FOUR BROTHER BROTHERS BUT WHICH?
Hutchison had started working with a geneticist 3 years ago. They were sifting through public geneology databases trying to find a possible match, or a relative, among the DNA profiles. As a result of these studies, very important data was obtained: The person who killed Stitt was “one of the sons of Rose Aguilera Ramirez”.
Then, 38-year-old Hutchison began to track down all four brothers. He consulted newspaper obituaries, online census results, and Facebook posts to locate the brothers.
Ultimately, the number of suspects was reduced to two. One of them was Gary Ramirez. But the work did not end there. Hutchison, who then reached one of Ramirez’s daughters via Facebook, took a DNA sample from this person.
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The sample was compared with blood and bodily fluids found at Stitt’s murder scene. The DNA sent to the lab in April last year appeared to belong to the father of the person on Facebook.
Local Santa Clara County officials have asked federal security forces in Maui to help locate Ramirez. Detectives who went to Maui last week also took a DNA sample from Ramirez himself. The sample, which was immediately sent to the crime lab in California, was compared with blood samples at the crime scene, and it was determined that Gary Ramirez was Stitt’s killer. Prosecutor Baker said the DNA evidence that led them to solve the case was extremely convincing.
Although Baker and Hutchison confirm that Ramirez resided in California in the 1980s, there are still some unexplained points in the case. For example, the connection of a striped white covered pickup truck seen by an eyewitness to the murder is being investigated. For this reason, the authorities stated that they are still open to the notifications of people who have information about the incident.
“I WANTED TO SCRATCH, I WAS FEARED TO WAKE OTHERS”
After nearly four months of operation, Ramirez was captured on August 2 and taken into custody. Detective Ramirez personally handcuffed Ramirez. It was stated that the 75-year-old man was very surprised to be caught and could not say anything other than “Oh my God” during the police raid.
Hutchison stated that many unsolved detectives have tried to solve the Karen Stitt case in the past, but the probability of catching the murderer decreases with each passing year. Moreover, even if the person who killed Stitt was identified, there was a possibility that the killer would not be alive.
Adding that he was very excited when he opened the e-mail with the DNA results, Hutchison said, “I wanted to scream, but it was 2:30 and I didn’t want to wake everyone in the hotel. So I had a quiet celebration.”
“I turned on my computer and clicked on Karen’s photo. I looked her in the eyes and said, ‘We did it,'” Hutchison said.
Gary Ramirez
NEVER OTHER CRIME IN LIFE
Police sources said that Ramirez has not been involved in any other crime in his life, and he has not the slightest criminal record.
Mercury News reported that Ramirez’s detention also shocked his relatives. “I’ve never seen my brother be violent or angry with anyone. He wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Rudy Ramirez, the suspect’s older brother, 79, who also lives in Maui, told Bay Area News Group.
Rudy Ramirez, who also said that his first reaction when the police knocked on his door shortly after his brother was taken into custody, was “You caught the wrong man” and continued as follows:
“We were two of four sons from a troubled middle-class family in Fresno. My father was a heavy machinery operator at a construction company. His favorite son was Gary. My brother was not a violent boy or a troubled juvenile delinquent. He was a boy who did everything in life. . It would be gold he touched. But in the following years he became withdrawn.”
Rudy Ramirez also stated that he moved to Maui at the age of 18 and had lost contact with his brother in the 1980s, when the murder was committed. Stating that Gary Ramirez lived with his mother in Fresno in the late 1980s, Rudy said, “I convinced him to move to Maui.”
Rudy Ramirez, who said that his brother was married twice, has two daughters, and worked as a waitress and insecticide in the past, continued as follows:
“He couldn’t work due to a hip injury. He has been living on a disability pension for a while. He was doing whitewash and paint jobs for a while. He was a well-built man, about 180 meters when he was young, but he got shorter as he got older.”
It seems unlikely that Ramirez will be released on bail or receive a reduced sentence, and will most likely face life imprisonment if found guilty after the judicial process. Ramirez is expected to be sent from Hawaii to California to stand trial.
Officials stated that Ramirez was a soldier who had previously served in the US Air Force.
Officials stated that Ramirez was a soldier who had previously served in the US Air Force.
“I HAVE BEEN LIVING WITH HEART PAIN FOR 40 YEARS”
Stitt’s aunt, Robin Stitt Morris, was in tears when she heard the news they had been waiting for 40 years. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for not giving up,” the woman from Tampa, Florida, said repeatedly to Detective Hutchison, who called her on the phone.
Stitt’s boyfriend Woods, now in his 50s, also made a statement to Mercury News. Stating that he has been suffering from the pain and guilt of leaving Stitt alone in order to get home, Woods said, “I live with the heartache caused by the terrible anxiety of the beautiful girl I’ve been in love with for 40 years.”
Adding that he has been very sensitive about the safety and security of family members and friends since then, Woods said, “I hope this result gives a sense of closure to her family, me and everyone else who loves Karen.”
Gary Ramirez
LAST PERIOD, MANY KILLERS HAVE COVERED THE COLLAR IN THIS WAY
The Santa Clara Attorney’s Office announced that the cost of the operation was covered by the endowment fund set aside by the US Department of Justice for the investigation of unsolved cases.
The team responsible for unsolved murders within the Santa Clara Police Department managed to solve the murder using a type of DNA technology called family tree geneology. The same technology has enabled many killers to get caught recently, especially the Golden State Killer caught in 2018.
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