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A DNA sample from the 1970s has led authorities to arrest a 56-year-old man in the 1974 murder of a Menlo Park woman, who was found shot to death in Big Cottonwood Canyon area of Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
On Wednesday, the Salt Lake County district attorney charged Gerald Walter Hicker of Washington state in the death of Barbara Jean Rocky, who was 21 and a student at Brigham Young University, the newspaper said.
Ms. Rocky graduated from Menlo-Atherton High School in 1970, according to a 1974 story in the Redwood City Tribune. A junior at Brigham Young University, she lived on Trinity Drive in Sharon Heights with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gene Rocchi, also known as Rocky, the newspaper said.
Mr. Hicker was arrested Wednesday in Tacoma, Washington, and is being held without bail in a local jail.
The case was cold for 33 years until last month when a detective took a soil sample from the crime scene to a laboratory. The lab found a skin or nail sample matching a DNA sample from Mr. Hicker, a police affidavit says.
Ms. Rocky was last seen alive March 11, 1974, pawning jewelry at a Salt Lake City business. Three hours later, Mr. Hicker filed a missing person report with Brigham Young University security, the Salt Lake Tribune says. He told police he found a letter in her car saying she was leaving school to be with new friends, according to the police affidavit.
The following day, a utility worker found her body about two miles above the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon.
Police at the time said she was shot six times in the back and forearm by a large caliber pistol. They said she might have died two days before her body was found.
For the full Salt Lake Tribune story, click here: http://www.sltrib.com//ci_7404162?IADID=Search-www.sltrib.com-www.sltrib.com
