Sunnyvale: 78-year-old man gets life in prison for 1982 stabbing death of teen girl

An elderly man who eluded suspicion for four decades after he viciously stabbed a teen girl in Sunnyvale will likely spend the rest of his life in prison after he was sentenced Monday in a San Jose courtroom Gary Gene Ramirez who was extradited from Hawaii in after a cold-case research that featured a refreshed DNA examination pleaded no contest to first-degree murder in February for the death of -year-old Palo Alto resident Karen Stitt Judge Hanley Chew sentenced Ramirez to a term of life in prison with parole eligibility in years when he would be years old Karen Stitt shown in an undated photo had in the past few days moved from Pennsylvania to Palo Alto when she was stabbed times and left for dead next to a Sunnyvale garden center in Gary Gene Martinez has been sentenced for her murder in Santa Clara County court Courtesy of Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office Bureaucrats contend that sometime after midnight on Sept Ramirez abducted Karen from a bus stop raped her and then stabbed her times before leaving her body behind a cinderblock wall about yards away Ramirez was living in Maui where he had spent the decades since in August when Sunnyvale police Detective Matt Hutchison armed with a DNA genealogy probe that implicated him as the lone and primary suspect in Karen s death handcuffed him and took him into custody A subsequent DNA analysis by the Santa Clara County Crime Lab operated by the district attorney s office matched Ramirez to blood evidence recovered near the old Woolworth Garden Center near El Camino Real near Wolfe Road That s where a truck driver discovered the body of Karen naked and bound with her own clothes Over years ago Karen Stitt lost her life but she was not forgotten District Attorney Jeff Rosen disclosed in a message Monday In the current era thanks to a dedicated detective a persistent prosecutor and our Crime Lab the person responsible is behind bars Related Articles Oakland Suspected pimp held boy to shield himself from arresting officers police say San Leandro man charged with meeting cop posing as -year-old girl San Jose Group of teens arrested after boxing in carjacking driver police say Bay Area man accused of setting deadly wildfire to cover up missing woman s homicide enters no-contest plea Early parole reversed in shocking Bay Area thrill kill murder after DA s appeal The homicide development frustrated detectives in Sunnyvale for decades until when Hutchison working with prosecutor and current cold-case supervisor Rob Baker consulted with a DNA genealogist to find new leads DNA genealogy which utilizes family trees generated from the genetic facts of millions of people who submitted their DNA to society and private databases to trace their lineage had been gaining prominence perhaps majority notably in the effort that led to the identification and arrest of the Golden State Killer the year before To that point examinations of DNA from the crime scene had not been fruitful in identifying a suspect though it did clear Karen s then-boyfriend to whom she was traveling by bus from Palo Alto to Sunnyvale the evening before she died Ramirez a Fresno native who in the intervening years had moved to Hawaii where he married twice and had two children was not on any law enforcement radar due to a clean criminal history The genealogy search narrowed the suspect pool to Ramirez and his three brothers Hutchison tracked down one of Ramirez s daughters and collected a DNA sample from her which led to a search warrant that compelled Ramirez to provide a DNA swab Soon after the Crime Lab matched his DNA to blood exposed on Karen s leather jacket By the time that link was made three years ago Karen s father and older sister had died Her scenario had long been a priority for the DA s office as it was the first to be featured on the agency s website when Rosen renewed his office s cold situation unit in