Shannon Ritter was 12 years old when she was murdered, with her body found floating in a bathtub and the children she was baby-sitting still asleep in their beds.
That was Sept. 30, 1972, and for more than three decades the death of the junior high school student remained a mystery.
Now, nearly 35 years after Shannon was choked and drowned in a Rancho Cordova apartment, prosecutors think they have her killer in James Calvin Gaines, whose trial started Wednesday in Sacramento Superior Court.
A 58-year-old retired handyman and father of three, Gaines was the original suspect in the crime, arrested in October 1972 by sheriff's detectives but never charged.
He was rearrested last August in Florida after detectives reopened the case and matched his DNA sample with traces of saliva on a cigarette butt found at the crime scene.
Prosecutor Eric Kindall told jurors in his opening statement that DNA testing identified Gaines as the smoker, even though the man said he had not been in the apartment on Coloma Road the night of the murder.
Defense attorney Robert Blasier, a DNA specialist, said all that the tests proved was that Gaines may have smoked the cigarette, not that he had killed Shannon.
"This case is no stronger today than it was in 1972, when they concluded there was not enough evidence to charge Mr. Gaines," Blasier told jurors.
Gaines' lead defense attorney, John Paul Brennan, told jurors that the time between the crime and the trial made the evidence unreliable.
"It's so long ago, no one really knows," he said.
Kindall called three retired sheriff's investigators who testified that the mother of the four children whom Shannon was baby-sitting arrived home from a bar shortly before 2 a.m. and found the girl's naked body in the overflowing bathtub.
The children, who apparently had slept through the killing, were still asleep when the first deputy arrived on the scene.
In 1972, Gaines was a 23-year-old airman at Mather Air Force Base who lived around the corner from the crime scene in an apartment with his wife and three children.
Retired sheriff's investigator Alexandria Magness testified that Gaines appeared to match a description provided by a witness.
She said that when she questioned Gaines soon after the killing, he appeared extremely nervous and his heart was visibly thumping through his shirt.
Magness said Gaines denied having been in his neighbor's apartment the night of the murder, but said he had gone there once to play dominos with another man who was a live-in baby sitter.
Retired forensic pathologist Pierce Rooney testified that Shannon probably died of strangulation and drowning. Scratches on the girl's neck indicated she might have tried to pry her attacker's hands from around her throat, he said.
He said he found no semen on her body and the only sign of a sexual assault was a bruising on her breast.
Detectives arrested Gaines on Oct. 5, 1972, but a week later decided they didn't have enough evidence to hold him, said retired sheriff's Detective Gil Magness, lead investigator in the case.
A short time later they arrested another suspect, John Strother, whom they also released without charging.
Members of Gaines' family, including his daughter and a niece, attended Wednesday's session.
His former wife of 18 years, Susan Gaines, sat in the hallway because she might be called as a witness. She said her ex-husband was "a good man, a perfect father," and she was surprised he was being prosecuted.
Members of Shannon Ritter's family attended the trial Wednesday but said they would not comment until jurors reached a verdict. Testimony is expected to resume today.
http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/183071.html
Photo of Shannon at the link also.