Cold Case No More: 75-year-old Hawaii Man Accused of Stabbing California Teen Karen Stitt in 1982

Gary Ramirez Karen Stitt Karen Stitt Murder Case

By Joel Brussels , Parent Herald Aug 13, 10:11 am

Photo: (Photo : FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

A 75-year-old man from Hawaii was accused on Tuesday of the brutal rape and murder of a California teen, four decades after her body was found by a cinder block wall in Silicon Valley, authorities announced.

According to court documents filed in Santa Clara County, Gary Ramirez was linked to the 1982 murder of 15-year-old Karen Stitt after a Sunnyvale police detective was alerted to the killer's possible identity last year.

The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office issued a news release, saying that Ramirez, who grew up in the Fresno area and served in the U.S. Air Force, was arrested on August 2 in Maui and is expected to be extradited on charges of murder, kidnap and rape, CNN reported.

Trucker found Stitt's body at the base of a cinder block wall

According to a statement of facts included in the court documents, a trucker found the body of Stitt on the morning of September 3, 1982, at the base of a cinder block wall. An autopsy later revealed that she had been stabbed 59 times.

Sunnyvale Police Detective Matt Hutchinson, who wrote the statement of facts, said Stitt had also been raped. According to the district attorney's office, the teen's boyfriend, who had been with her the night before she was killed, was initially believed to be a suspect.

The two met on the night of September 2 at a 7-Eleven in Sunnyvale, where the boyfriend lived. According to the statement of facts, they spent a few hours together before Stitt went to a bus stop for a ride home to Palo Alto.

Stitt's naked body was found 100 yards from the bus stop. The boyfriend was ruled out as a suspect; however, after a DNA analysis found that sperm collected from the victim's body and male blood found at the crime scene did not match a sample that was provided by the boyfriend.

According to the Associated Press, no other suspect was identified in connection with Stitt's murder. The case remained cold until 2021, two years after Hutchinson teamed up with a genetic genealogist.

DNA sample leads to Ramirez's arrest

Hutchinson found that a son of a woman named Rose Aguilera Ramirez may have killed Stitt. The researcher found that the woman's family lived in the Fresno area and that she had four sons, according to the document.

The document further stated that the detective ruled out two of the brothers as possible suspects in the Stitt murder case using law enforcement and public records databases. When details for one of the two remaining brothers could not be verified, Hutchinson found a child of Gary Ramirez and obtained DNA from that person.

The county crime lab compared the DNA sample from those found at the crime scene and found very strong statistical support that they were a match, according to People Magazine. It was not immediately clear whether Ramirez has a lawyer to speak on his behalf. He was arrested at his home in Makawao.