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Thumbprint on cigarette carton leads to arrest in 1977 death of young woman

  • Willie Eugene Sims, 69, was arrested in Jefferson, Ohio, on Friday for the 1977 murder of Jeanette Ralston in San Jose, California.
  • Investigators linked Sims to the crime through a thumbprint found on Ralston's cigarette carton, matched last fall using the FBI's updated system.
  • Ralston was strangled with a dress shirt, sexually assaulted, found dead in her Volkswagen Beetle on February 1, 1977, near a bar she had left.
  • DNA from Sims matched samples from Ralston's fingernails and the shirt used in the strangulation, confirming the connection to the crime.
  • The arrest resolves a decades-old cold case, highlighting advances in forensic science, and Sims now faces a murder charge after the system played out.
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Associated Press News broke the news in United States on Tuesday, May 13, 2025.
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