Cold case of woman found dead on California hillside more than three decades ago finally solved

California investigators have solved the murder of a woman who was found dead on a hillside three decades ago.

Danielle Clause, 42, was murdered in 1991 but officials did not know who’d committed the crime until recently when the Ventura Police Department decided to use advanced genetic genealogy techniques to find the murderer.

After 33 years, officials determined that Larry Welch was responsible for the woman’s death. Welch died in 1999 and it’s not believed that the two were known to each other. According to an autopsy, the woman had been sexually assaulted and died from blunt-force trauma head injuries.

When officials found the woman’s body on 16 July 1991 near downtown Ventura, she was partially unclothed. She had last been seen the night before talking to an unknown man.

Retired lieutenant Douglas Auldridge said that officials had investigated every avenue available at the time before the case was suspended and considered cold. In 2021, officials decided to DNA test evidence collected during the investigation, which later came back as a match for Welch.

Genealogists had built out a family tree for the man by July 2022. A woman related to Welch provided officers with a DNA sample, leading investigators to narrow in on the suspect and his brother. However, officials ultimately needed to test the DNA of Welch’s brother, who officials did not identify, to rule him out as a suspect.

The brother provided a DNA sample, which confirmed Welch had killed Clause.

Marcie Forte, the victim’s sister, recalled how Clause “was so badly beaten that she was unrecognisable”. She said she’d always prayed that she’d be able to know who killed her sister, adding that she was grateful to have lived to see the day officials found her killer.

“My sister was so much more than a victim of a brutal murder,” the woman said in a video announcing the discovery.

Police departments nationwide have recently relied on DNA technology to help solve cold cases.

In 2021, genealogists solved the cold case murder of Barbara Tucker, who was 19 when she died, by using DNA technology. Her murderer, Robert Arthur Plympton, 60, was found guilty of the crime in March, an Oregon court ruled.