Richmond police said Jerry Lee Henderson killed Meekiah Wadley at her home in January 1999, but could not bring him to trial because he died of a suspected drug overdose 11 days after her death.
The body of a woman found on the side of Highway 152, sexually assaulted, near Gilroy in 1993 has been identified as Patricia Skiple of Oregon.
"I know it's been a long 22 years since this heinous crime was committed, and justice doesn't always come swiftly," said Diana Becton, Contra Costa County's district attorney, who was joined at Thursday's news conference by state Attorney General Rob Bonta and members of Wadley's grieving family. DNA collected at the crime never yielded a direct hit in DNA criminal databases. But in October 2020, investigators asked the state to conduct a familial search.
Bonta declined to specify the individual whose DNA led to Henderson, but said investigators worked to eliminate other possibilities. That search resulted in a hit, meaning that the DNA from the crime scene matched with a parent, sibling or child whose profile was already in the criminal database. Acting Richmond Police Chief Louie Tirona initially did not want to name Henderson. But he relented under pushback from Wadley's family, who said the killer's family still considered him a good person.
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