Los Altos Town Crier - Police arrest cold-case murder suspect

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Police arrest cold-case murder suspect

Written by Eliza Ridgeway

Using DNA testing to resurrect a 28-year-old murder investigation, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office found a suspect in Saba Girmai’s murder.

The 21-year-old was strangled and left in a Safeway dumpster in a shopping center on North Shoreline Boulevard in Mountain View in 1985. She was a resident of the San Jose area.

According to the Mountain View Police Department, no “significant leads” were developed in the years that followed her death. But in 2010, the district attorney’s crime laboratory developed a DNA profile from evidence on the victim’s fingernails allegedly identifying Daniel Garcia, now 53, a resident of Fresno. He had not been previously linked to Girmai.

Mountain View police and the district attorney’s office reopened the case. After interviewing Garcia, they charged and arrested him for Girmai’s murder Jan. 4.

“We never forget about unsolved murder cases and continuously seek out new technology and new leads to help solve them,” Mountain View Police Chief Scott Vermeer said in announcing the arrest.

2 Comments

1Comment
at Friday, 08 February 2013 12:54by don

He had a court date feb 5th. Where is the follow up.

2"update"
at Thursday, 14 February 2013 11:09by Eliza (reporter)

The Feb. 5 court date was an informational/routine event, no news to report out of it. You might be interested to know that the next court date (9 a.m. March 5) will be an opportunity for Garcia to enter a plea. Doesn't mean he will (delays are fairly common), but we'll be following it.

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