CA CA - Karen Stitt, 15, Sunnyvale, 4 September 1982

She was murdered behind the Honeybee restaurant in Sunnyvale. She was stabbed 60 times.

http://patch.com/california/paloalt...-santa-clara-county-district-attorneys-office

http://www.fugitive.com/2014/04/09/...orneys-office-is-asking-the-public-for-clues/

Karen Stitt

Karen Stitt was the new girl in town, a spunky Pittsburgh, Pa. transplant who quickly eased into the social life of Palo Alto High and negotiated the El Camino Real bus routes to and from her boyfriend’s in Sunnyvale like a native.

Sept. 4, 1982 was a Saturday and Karen and her boyfriend were hanging out late, playing some video games at a 7-Eleven. Toward midnight they wandered over toward Golfland, a popular putt-putt course. Around 12:30 a.m., Karen’s boyfriend dropped her off near a bus stop at the corner of El Camino Real and South Wolfe Road. She would grab the 22 back to Palo Alto and her father’s house.

There, snatched from the stretch of roadway choked with cruising cars, cluttered with restaurants and bars - the teenager, wearing a leather jacket, a striped shirt, pants and her boyfriend’s baseball hat with a Rush rock band insignia, disappeared.

A delivery man found her the next day. Thrown over a four-foot wall near the now-gone Honey Bee Restaurant, Karen’s naked body was bound with her own clothing. The hat lay nearby. She had been stabbed more than 60 times.

The possible importance of a number of clues has lingered over the years. A machinist working late that night noticed an unusual and out-of-place truck. It was white, an old-fashioned panel truck with a stripe along its side. There was a rectangular sticker on its bumper. It was parked near where Karen’s body was later found. Its parking lights were on.

Assistant Deputy District Attorney Marc Buller and the Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety are asking anyone who recalls that truck or anything that may shed light on Karen's horrific murder to contact them. Even a seemingly insignificant piece of information, not collected at the time, may be vital.

If you have any information at all, please call District Attorney Investigator Michael Brown at 408-808-3760 or Sunnyvale Department of Public Safety Detective Joe Lockwood at 408-730-7134.

https://countyda.sccgov.org/murder-karen-stitt

It looks like this case has finally been solved, after 40 years. Excellent news:

Glad he was caught while still alive. Given the brutality of the crime, hard to imagine he only did this once. Condolences to the Stitt family.

Man charged in 1982 cold-case murder of Palo Alto teen

"Ramirez grew up and attended high school in Fresno. He served in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1970s. After leaving the military, he frequented or resided in the Bay Area, San Francisco, San Diego, Colorado and Hawaii, the District Attorney's Office said."

...

"We’ve also had contact with people who recognize Mr. Ramirez, as well as family members of unsolved murder victims around the Bay Area who are asking us to look into their cases. Det. Hutchison and the DA’s Cold Case Unit is going to work with relevant agencies to look into them," Baker said."

Wow, this is great news! This case has always been personal for me. I was a year older than Karen when she was murdered and lived a few blocks from where this happened. Me and my friends practically grew up playing video games at Golfland (it's still there, amazingly enough), and grabbing Slurpee's at the 7/11 across the street where she and her boyfriend had visited. I remember reading about it when it happened, but it wasn't a big topic of discussion on our campus, which is just over a mile away from the murder scene, because she went to a school a few towns away.

How many other victims did he murder? And who were they?

This was not a single, isolated occurrence.

Aug 23 2022 rbbm,
''Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker, with the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, told KHON2 that Gary Gene Ramirez was not arraigned this week due to medical reasons. He is scheduled to be arraigned next Monday, Aug. 29.''

August 30, 2022
''On Monday, Ramirez appeared with white hair and glasses, leaning on a cane beside Public Defender Lara Wallman. He isn’t expected to enter a plea until the next hearing scheduled for 9 a.m., Oct. 28. Although the killing is considered a capital crime, Ramirez will not face the death penalty because District Attorney Jeff Rosen announced in 2020 he will no longer seek it in any prosecutions.

Karen’s mother died when she was young, but her father lived until 2018 without justice for his daughter. Karen’s aunt, Robin Stitt Morris, watched Monday’s arraignment online from Florida. She said she is confident the case against Ramirez is “bulletproof.”

“I will be disappointed if he doesn’t take ownership and plead guilty,” Morris said. “Gary Ramirez has lived freely with the knowledge of his unfathomable crimes for nearly 40 years. The time for him to bear the consequences is long overdue.”

Ramirez is being held without bail and his public defender made no attempt Monday to modify that, although she has that option in the future.''

Gary Ramirez is one of four brothers, he said, who grew up in what he called a “dysfunctional family” in Fresno.


Gary had spent several years in the Air Force before moving back to Fresno with his mother, he said. He lost track of his brother in the early 1980s, he said, but in the late ‘80s invited him to move to Maui to be close to him. Gary worked a number of odd jobs, including as an exterminator, before retiring with a bad hip. He was married twice and raised two daughters''.

More info. on how the perp. was finally caught: