Cigarette helps remedy 60-year-old cold-case homicide

A grisly 1966 homicide within the prosperous city of San Rafael — which despatched shockwaves via the group — was lastly solved 60 years later, all because of modern-day DNA testing.

Sixty-year-old Marjorie Rudolph — a descendant of a rich and outstanding Nineteenth-century San Francisco dentist and landowner — was brutally killed within the night hours whereas alone in her house.

Greater than half a century later, nicely after each she and her killer had died, two retired detectives lastly solved it, SFGate reported.

“Each investigators have generously volunteered their time to help chilly case investigations,” the San Rafael Police Division mentioned in a information launch. “As they typically notice, ‘Chilly circumstances by no means develop chilly within the hearts of the sufferer’s household.’”

Rudolph’s killer, Laurel James Switzer Jr., then aged 41 years outdated, was recognized after well-preserved cigarettes on the scene of the crime positioned him on the sufferer’s house the evening the homicide passed off.

The perpetrator left behind an important piece of bodily proof: Discarded cigarettes that didn’t match the model smoked by the Rudolph, main investigators to consider they have been key to fixing the case.

Switzer Jr. was a former police officer and veteran who died by suicide simply days after the homicide.

On the night of Feb. 1, 1966, at Carroll Court docket in San Rafael, Rudolph was house alone whereas her husband Leroy Rudolph recovered from surgical procedure in a neighborhood hospital.

Her last recognized contact occurred at 5:30 p.m. when she declined a neighbor’s dinner invitation, stating she was already in her gown and settled in for the evening, based on detectives within the Sixties.

As a result of there have been no indicators of pressured entry, investigators concluded she possible opened her door to somebody she acknowledged between the time she took that cellphone name and eight:00 p.m. When her neighbor found Rudolph useless inside her house the following day, the inside was in disarray, with furnishings overturned, and blood spatters marking the depth of the confrontation.

The killer utilized a heavy, pointed object to inflict catastrophic accidents on Rudolph, fracturing her cranium and breaking practically all of her ribs. A county coroner would later comment that her sternum was crushed so badly it was “as if somebody had pounced up and down on her.”

After the beating, the killer stuffed a bath and positioned Marjorie’s physique inside. Her wristwatch, nonetheless fixed to her wrist, stopped at 7:55 p.m., offering detectives with a definitive timestamp for the conclusion of the assault.

Though the killer tried to stage a theft by ransacking drawers, no valuables have been lacking from the house. There was additionally no proof of sexual assault.

The households of the sufferer and the killer have been mentioned to know one another.

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