Robert Keller - Cold Cases: Solved Volume 2: 18 Fascinating True Crime Cases

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18 Baffling Cold Cases Solved!

: An ill-advised late night stop puts a young woman directly in the path of a killer. Hes done this before.

: Michelle claimed that her five-year-old son had been abducted from a fairground. The truth was far more sinister than that.

: An ingenious idea, adopted from the US military, finally points the finger of guilt at a killer. But will the evidence hold up to scrutiny?

: It was a short walk, along well-lit streets, through a quiet English village. But evil can lurk anywhere and strike without warning.

: It was a routine traffic stop. Neither of the officers realized that theyd pulled over a fugitive or that hed come out shooting.

: Three young boys go into town to watch a Sunday matinee and never return. Theyve fallen into the hands of a depraved pedophile.

: The suspect had a perfect alibi. Did the police really believe that hed have committed a murder on his wedding day?

: A teenage store clerk working her first solo shift; a boozed-up miscreant looking for an easy score; a tragedy about to unfold.

: A young girl walking home from a Halloween party is snatched from the street by two lowlife brothers. What happens next is pure evil.

: Killing was his business, rape and robbery his stock in trade. Eventually, though, your sins catch up with you.

: Flight attendant Nancy is working a short haul junket from Minneapolis to Detroit. Tragically, it will be her last.

: On the day she was to return home from a counseling retreat, Jessica decided to visit the mall. That would prove to be a fatal mistake.

: A woman is gunned down on her doorstep by an assassin in a clown suit. The clues point to an unlikely suspect.

: Thirty years after a teenagers death, her killer finally breaks down and confesses, claiming hes being tormented by his victims ghost.

: A casual Sunday drive to the store turns into a nightmare when a young woman encounters a serial killer.

: The police had always suspected that Osman had killed his lover. An unusual piece of evidence will prove them right.

: Curtis is quitting town, heading for the sun and sand of Waikiki. First, though, he has some questions to answer.

: Ray was the guy who got all the girls. Rejection sat badly with him, very badly indeed.

Just after 3:30 a.m. on the morning of Sunday, March 11, 1979, a police dispatcher in Oxnard, California received a frantic phone call. The caller said that his name was Enrique Zuniga and that he was calling from out of state. According to Zuniga, his ex-wife, Alma, had called him from a payphone in Oxnard. They had been talking on the phone when Alma suddenly said, That guy came back. Before he could ask which guy she was talking about, he heard the phone booth door open. Then Alma started screaming that someone was hitting her; then he heard the door close again and there was only silence on the line. Zuniga didnt know the location of the phone booth but begged the dispatcher to find Alma. Shes been raped before, he pleaded. This cant happen again.

These days, we take 911 for granted but back in 1979, the 911 emergency system did not exist in California. It was still four years away. The dispatcher therefore forwarded the call to the city of Oxnards after-hours line. From there, patrol officers were informed of a possible abduction. A unit soon located a payphone on J Street with the receiver hanging off the hook. But they found no trace of the missing woman or of her car, described as a rusty, blue Pontiac. They would not locate Alma Zuniga that night.

At around 10:00 a.m. the next morning, another distraught man was on the line to the Oxnard police. His name was Jesus Gutierrez, and he had a disturbing find to report. According to Gutierrez, hed been driving home with his family from church when hed spotted a human hand protruding from the dirt on the lemon orchard where he lived. The site was in El Rio, a small, semi-rural community on the outskirts of Oxnard. Officers immediately rushed to the scene. There they found the sight that had so distressed Jesus Gutierrez, a slim hand, reaching through the layer of dirt as though trying to escape the makeshift grave.

The burial site was about 83 feet from North Rose Avenue. Carefully evacuated, it turned out to contain the body of a petite, dark-haired woman. Whoever had buried her here had done so in a hurry, evacuating a shallow grave and then pulling a rusty bedspring and part of an old, corrugated water tank over it. The victims bra, blouse, and jacket were pulled up to expose her breasts. She was naked from the waist down, with her pants buried beside her and her underwear placed on top of the water tank. The police found a purse containing nearly $100 in cash. There was also a dry-cleaning receipt made out in the victims name. Alma Zuniga had been found.

Other evidence found at the crime scene included two .22-caliber casings and one unexpended round. The casings were from two bullets that had been fired into Almas head. One had buried itself in her right temple, the other had shattered her jaw. In addition, the young woman had been stabbed. A long-bladed knife had been thrust into her lower back, slicing through flesh and perforating her liver. Since this was obviously a sex crime, a rape kit was prepared and retrieved a semen sample. Back in 1979, this was not the game-changer that it is today. All that it told investigators was the blood type of the killer.

But how had Alma Zuniga ended up here, in a shallow grave on the outskirts of town? Tracking her movements, investigators learned that shed been out clubbing the previous evening with a couple of friends named Christine Oregon and Sergio Valdez. The trio had worked their way through the nightspots of downtown Oxnard and had eventually ended up at the Army Navy Caf on Fifth Street. That was around 2:00 a.m. and theyd stayed for an hour before eventually calling it a night. Christine and Sergio had walked Alma to her car. Theyd watched her drive away and turn left onto Oxnard Boulevard at its intersection with Fifth Street.

A short time later, Alma had made the fateful decision to call her ex-husband and had stopped at a payphone. It was here that her killer found her and dragged her from the phone booth. Hed then forced her into her car and driven away with her. How had he subdued Alma, a woman known for her feisty temperament? That question would be answered when the police found the missing Pontiac. The passenger seat was thick with congealed blood. Now investigators understood that terrible knife wound to Almas lower back. It appeared that the killer had stabbed her here, in the car. This was a deep, debilitating wound, potentially fatal. After that, there would have been no fight left in her. The killer had driven her to the lemon orchard and pulled her from the vehicle. Hed raped her on the ground as she lay dying. Then, after taking what he wanted, he callously executed the 23-year-old, making an orphan of her 18-month-old son.