GALT, Calif. (AP) – A suspect in the 1988 sexual assault and murder of a 79-year-old woman in a small community in Northern California has been identified thanks to advanced DNA testing on the victim’s fingernails, authorities said Tuesday.
Terry Leroy Bramble was 32 when she sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled Lucille Hultgren at her home, Galt Police Chief Brian Kalinowski said.
Bramble was a homeless and registered sex offender when he died of natural causes in 2011 while living under a bridge on Highway 99 in Galt, Kalinowski said.
Bramble’s DNA, collected during a 1992 sexual assault conviction in San Joaquin County, coincides with DNA found in nail scraps collected from Haltgren’s body, helping detectives uncover the 34-year-old cold, the county said. Sacramento County Attorney Ann Marie Schubert.
“Nail scraping has become the key to resolving this case,” she said.
Schubert said that DNA tests have advanced so much that very little genetic material is needed to obtain a DNA profile.
In the past, a DNA sample had to be a quarter in size to make a profile, but “now it’s less than a billionth of the size of a Sweet’n Low package,” Schubert said.
On May 23, 1988, two friends who went to Hultgren’s home to check on her after she had not gone to church the day before found her dead in her bedroom and called police, Kalinowski said.
A mother of two, Hultgren has been living alone since her husband died last year, Kalinowski said.
The investigator said at the time that Haltgren had died two to five days before her body was found and that the cause of death was stab wounds to the chest and strangulation, Kalinowski said.
Hultgren’s murder was the only cold case in the town of 25,000 people 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Sacramento, authorities said.
Authorities say the motive for Hultgren’s murder is still unknown.
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