Decades-old baby deaths finally solved as science cracks chilling California cold case: “Justice was served”
California – A decades-old series of crimes in Yolo County has reached a resolution following a jury conviction that relied on advances in forensic science and sustained cooperation among law enforcement agencies.
This week, a Yolo County jury found Paul Allen Perez guilty of multiple counts of murder and one assault on a child under eight that led to death. The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office handled the case, with help from the California Department of Justice’s forensic team.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said that the outcome shows how scientific technologies are becoming more important in bringing criminals to justice, even years after the incident.
“With this conviction, justice was served for these horrific crimes,” said Attorney General Bonta.
“This case is a powerful example of how innovative scientific techniques provide a voice for victims of crime. I am incredibly proud of the work our Bureau of Forensic Services put into this case, which provided a pathway to justice. I’m also grateful to the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office and all of our law enforcement partners for their dedication to finding justice for these children.”
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The conviction ends a cold case of the deaths of five infants between 1992 and 2001. For years, detectives didn’t have the proof they needed to name a suspect. A big step forward happened when the remains of a baby were found in 2007 in Conway Slough, which is east of Woodland. Even though the DNA from the remains was regularly tested, no immediate match was identified, and the case remained open.
A further forensic evaluation ten years later led to progress. The California Department of Justice’s Missing Persons DNA Program and the Cal-DNA Data Bank worked together in 2017 to find a DNA match between relatives. This process showed that Perez was the biological father of the baby whose body had been found. That discovery gave detectives a crucial lead. They were able to look at the evidence again and eventually put together a case that linked several murders over a nine-year period.
The Missing Persons DNA Program, established in 2001, plays a central role in identifying missing individuals and unknown human remains across California. The initiative works with coroners, medical examiners, and law enforcement agencies in all 58 counties to make sure DNA evidence is collected and compared. The program’s goal is to help families and police solve crimes by matching DNA from unidentified remains with samples from missing persons’ relatives or personal items.
In this case, the utilization of kinship DNA analysis and concerted investigative effort turned long-standing questions into a trial verdict, bringing some justice to crimes that had gone unresolved for years.
