RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif. (KCAL/KCBS) – A family of a 17-year-old girl who was raped and murdered more than 40 years ago may finally be getting answers found using DNA evidence.
Esther Gonzalez was killed in 1979, and her killer had remained unidentified for decades.
Her sister, Liz Gonzalez, said she would never have hurt anyone.
“Sometimes I wish I would have followed her, you know, if I’d had known that was gonna happen I would have followed her,” Liz Gonzalez said.
Liz Gonzalez and brother Eddie Gonzalez said their sister had been in her senior year of high school when she went missing.
She had reportedly been walking from her mother’s home to her sister’s home one Friday night. Her body was found 15 miles from that area on a mountain road the next day.
“I never let it go because I know if it was me, my sister would never let it go,” Liz Gonzalez said.
After all of this time, the family finally knows who killed Esther Gonzalez.
Jason Cory is an investigator with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and Regional Cold Case Taskforce.
“A lot of these families, they deserve justice,” he said.
Cory said evidence had been sent to Othram Labs in Texas, which used new technology to create a DNA sequence for a possible suspect.
“We were able to get that profile loaded into a direct consumer website and then from there our genealogist went to work on it,” he said.
The DNA was a match to Randy Williamson, someone Eddie Gonzalez had gone to high school with.
“I’m very surprised because I didn’t think he was capable of doing something like that,” Eddie Gonzalez said.
Williamson was the person who reported Esther Gonzalez’s body and was questioned by police five days after her death. He had even taken a polygraph test.
“He did admit during that interview that he found Esther’s body,” Cory said. “He was rude on the phone because he didn’t want to be involved.”
Williamson died in Florida in 2014, but the coroner still had a blood sample to confirm the discovery that he was the killer.
“I wish the guy would have stayed alive and served his life sentence,” Eddie Gonzalez said.
The family said having answers is enough. Although nothing can bring back their little sister, just knowing what happened brings them some peace.
“I feel like I still have her with me but I still miss her,” Liz Gonzalez said.
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