RIVERSIDE COUNTY, Calif. (TCN) — Investigators recently identified a primary suspect in the rape and death of a teen girl found dumped in a snowpack more than 45 years ago.
According to the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, on Feb. 9, 1979, someone assaulted and bludgeoned 17-year-old Esther Gonzalez while she was walking from her parents’ house to her sister’s home. The following day, Randolph “Randy” Williamson, who deputies called “argumentative,” reportedly called the Riverside County Sheriff’s Station in Banning to report a possible body. Authorities subsequently found Gonzalez’s remains near Highway 243.
Prosecutors said Williamson took a polygraph test and passed, ruling him out as a suspect. Officials worked on the case for years and uploaded a semen sample from the crime scene into the Combined DNA Index System, but the case went cold.
In 2023, authorities working on the case submitted evidence to genetic genealogy company Othram Labs to help identify any potential leads. According to the district attorney’s office, investigators learned even though Williamson had passed the polygraph in 1979, he was never ruled out as a suspect through DNA testing.
Williamson died in Florida in 2014, but a blood sample was collected during his autopsy, and investigators sent it to the California Department of Justice. According to prosecutors, the department of justice determined Williamson’s DNA matched the DNA from Gonzalez’s remains.
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