Two California cold case homicides from 1980s solved with advances in DNA technology

NEWYou can now pay attention to Fox Information posts!

A partnership of law enforcement agencies in Orange County, California, announced that a pair of chilly scenario homicides from 1987 and 1989 have been solved due to advancements in DNA engineering. 

Shannon Rose Lloyd, 23, was discovered dead in her bedroom in Backyard Grove, California, in May 1987. A coroner identified at the time that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death, but the investigation went chilly for several years. 

Two yrs afterwards, in February 1989, 27-year-outdated Renee Cuevas was located useless along a road in the vicinity of the El Toro Marine base. 

Investigators were also initially stumped in Cuevas’ murder, but the Orange County Criminal offense Lab determined that the two situations ended up connected in 2003. 

Shannon Rose Lloyd, 23, was found murdered in her bedroom in 1987. 

Shannon Rose Lloyd, 23, was uncovered murdered in her bed room in 1987. 
(Yard Grove Law enforcement Division)

Last year, utilizing innovations in genetic genealogy and DNA technological know-how, authorities linked 39-year-previous Reuben Smith to each crimes. 

JONBENET RAMSEY Criminal offense SCENE DNA COULD BE IDED IN Hours, Cold Case RESEARCHER Suggests AS Family PUSHES FOR Responses

Smith lived in Orange County in the 1980s but experienced moved to Las Vegas, in which he was arrested for sexual assault and attempted murder of a different lady in July 1998. 

He fully commited suicide in 1999, but DNA from his arrest was a match for evidence that was observed at the scenes of Llyod’s and Cuevas’ murders. 

Renee Cuevas' death was linked to Lloyds's murder using DNA evidence, but investigators were unable to identify a suspect for years. 

Renee Cuevas’ loss of life was joined to Lloyds’s murder utilizing DNA evidence, but investigators had been not able to establish a suspect for a long time. 
(Back garden Grove Police Section)

“The beloved ones of Renee Cuevas and Shannon Lloyd have the answers to the query they have been inquiring for much more than a few decades,” Orange County District Lawyer Todd Spitzer claimed in a statement. 

“The justice that each and every target warrants was concealed away in DNA, but with developments in [investigative genetic genealogy] technology merged with the relentless perseverance of generations of detectives and the proficient prosecutors and forensic experts at the District Attorney’s Workplace, we now know who killed Renee and Shannon.” 

Spitzer reported that 4 cold situation homicides have been solved in Orange County working with investigative genetic genealogy, though about 200 have been solved nationally. 

Click Below TO GET THE FOX News Application

The investigative engineering was famously employed in 2018 to crack the case of the Golden Condition Killer, who terrorized California in the 1970s and 1980s with up to a dozen murders, 45 rapes, and 120 property burglaries. 

Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested for the crime spree in 2018 just after investigators used DNA evidence from a crime scene and in contrast it to DNA samples of spouse and children history web sites.