Man who passed polygraph in teen’s 1979 killing now ID’d as suspect, CA officials say
More than four decades after a 17-year-old was found dead in a snowpack in California, a man who passed a polygraph in her killing has been identified as her suspected killer, prosecutors say.
Lewis Randolph “Randy” Williamson, who died in Florida in 2014, was identified as a suspect in Esther Gonzalez’s 1979 killing, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said in a Nov. 20 news release.
Body found
As Gonzalez walked from her parents’ Beaumont home to her sister’s Banning home Feb. 9, 1979, she was attacked and killed, prosecutors said.
The next day, her body was found “dumped in a snowpack off Highway 243 near Banning,” prosecutors said.
A man, “described by deputies as argumentative,” called the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office and reported finding her body, prosecutors said.
Investigators determined Gonzalez “had been raped and bludgeoned to death,” according to prosecutors.
Days after her body was found, deputies identified the person who called the sheriff’s office as Williamson, according to prosecutors.
Deputies asked him to take a polygraph, prosecutors said.
“He agreed and passed which, at the time, cleared him of any wrongdoing,” prosecutors said.
Detectives continued to work on the case over the decades and “eventually uploaded a semen sample from the crime scene into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS),” prosecutors said.
The case, though, went cold.
Investigative genetic genealogy
Then, in 2023, investigators set their sights on forensic investigative genetic genealogy to help close the case and partnered with Othram Inc., prosecutors said.
Genetic genealogy uses DNA testing coupled with “traditional genealogical methods” to create “family history profiles,” according to the Library of Congress. With genealogical DNA testing, researchers can determine if and how people are biologically related.
Investigators sent DNA evidence to Othram, where its scientists created “a comprehensive genealogical profile,” the company said in a Nov. 20 news release.
Law enforcement used this DNA profile in “a forensic genetic genealogical search,” which pointed them back to Williamson, the company said.
While looking into the case earlier this year, a crime analyst realized that while Williamson was cleared by the polygraph decades ago, “he was never cleared through DNA,” prosecutors said.
At the time, technology to test DNA did not exist, according to prosecutors.
Though Williamson died in 2014, a blood sample was collected during his autopsy and sent to the California Department of Justice, prosecutors said.
Recently, the department confirmed “Williamson’s DNA matches the DNA recovered from Esther’s body,” according to prosecutors.
Banning is about an 85-mile drive east from Los Angeles.
This story was originally published November 20, 2024 at 5:51 PM with the headline "Man who passed polygraph in teen’s 1979 killing now ID’d as suspect, CA officials say."
