Riverside, California, cold case homicide investigators used DNA technology to link a man who passed a lie detector in connection to a 1979 murder, to the crime.
Riverside, California, investigators linked a man’s DNA to a 1979 cold case murder of a teenage girl, years after the same man passed a lie detector test about the crime, according to authorities. The body of 17-year-old Esther Gonzalez was found dumped in packed snow off Highway 243 in Banning, California, in 1979, and after an investigation, detectives determined the teen had been raped and bludgeoned to death.
Gonzalez was attacked and murdered on Feb. 9, 1979, as she was walking to her sister’s house in Banning from her parent’s house in Beaumont. Her body was found the next day after an unidentified man, who Riverside County Sheriff’s Office deputies described as 'argumentative,' called to report he had found a body. The man, later identified as Williamson, said he did not know if the victim was a man or a woman.
crime analyst assigned to the team determined that even though Williamson was cleared by a polygraph test in 1979, he was never cleared through DNA because the technology had not yet been developed. When Williamson died in Florida in 2014, a blood sample was collected during the autopsy. With the Broward County Sheriff’s Office’s assistance, the sample was sent to the California Department of Justice. It was ultimately confirmed that Williamson’s DNA matched the DNA recovered from Esther’s body.
The Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team encourages anyone who knew Williamson or may have information about the case or other potential victims to contact them at 951-955-277 or [email protected].
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