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U.S.|Thumbprint on Cigarette Carton Cracks a 48-Year-Old California Murder Case
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/us/jeanette-ralston-cold-case-murder-suspect.html
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A young mother told friends that she’d be “back in 10 minutes.” She never returned, and the police in San Jose have now charged a man in her death.
May 10, 2025, 6:32 p.m. ET
Jeannette Ralston was at the Lion’s Den bar in San Jose, Calif., when she told her friends that she would be “back in 10 minutes.”
She never returned.
The next morning, on Feb. 1, 1977, police officers found the 24-year-old woman strangled with the long sleeve of a red women’s dress shirt and squeezed into the back seat of her Volkswagen Beetle in a parking lot a few minutes away from the bar.
Almost 50 years later, the authorities believe that they know who strangled her.
Willie Eugene Sims, 69, of Jefferson, Ohio, was arraigned on Friday on a charge of murder in San Jose, Calif., and held without bail, after his extradition from Ohio.
He did not enter a plea and his next court date was set for August. It was unclear if Mr. Sims had a lawyer.
The investigation into the killing of Ms. Ralston, a mother and resident of San Mateo, Calif., went cold after no credible leads were initially developed.
The police found a carton of Eve cigarettes, a popular brand for women in the 1970s, and the shirt that she was strangled with. They also had a sketch drawn of an unidentified man that her friends saw her leave the bar with the night before she was found.
