Decades-old murder cases solved using DNA from 2021 sexual assault, California cops say

Despite having DNA evidence, the murders of two California women went unsolved for decades.

Detectives knew the two Bay Area cases from 1980 and 1996 shared the same DNA evidence, but were never able to identify a suspect, the Solano County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Thursday.

However, DNA collected from a recent sexual assault in the North Bay led to a breakthrough in the decades-old cases, authorities said in the news release posted on Facebook.

James Ray Gary, 76, from Fairfield, was arrested Tuesday, July 19 after DNA from the recent sexual assault case matched the two cold-case homicides, the sheriff’s department said.

“We are hopeful that this arrest can help bring some closure to the families and friends that have been seeking justice for as much as 40 years,” the department said.

Fairfield is about 40 miles southwest of Sacramento.

In July 1980, Latrelle Lindsay, 46, was found dead at her Union City home, according to authorities. She died of “asphyxia due to strangulation associated with blunt force injuries.” She had also been sexually assaulted.

“A DNA sample was later sent for entry and search in a law enforcement database, but no match was made,” the news release said.

Nearly 16 years later, in March 1996, another woman’s body was found by state transportation workers in the bushes along Interstate 780 near Laurel Street in Vallejo, the department said. Forty-six-year old Winifred Douglas’ cause of death was similar to Lindsay’s: “asphyxia and blunt force trauma to the head and neck.”

It wasn’t until 2003 that detectives were able to get a single DNA profile from evidence in the 1996 case, officials said. Still, no match was found when it was loaded to the FBI’s DNA database.

Detectives were able to link the two cases in 2012 when they were notified that the DNA profile from the 1980 and 1996 cases matched, the department said. For a decade, though, a suspect was not identified.

But in early July, detectives learned DNA from a sex crime investigated by North Bay policein 2021 matched the DNA profile from the two cases, officials said.

Detectives collected a DNA sample from Gary that matched the DNA profiles in all the three crimes, officials said.

Gary was booked at Solano County Jail on a homicide charge, the news release said. He is being held without bail. The department expects additional charges to be brought against Gary related to the 1980 homicide.

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