Fingerprint on cigarette pack helps solve cold case from 1977, CA officials say
Nearly five decades after a 24-year-old woman was found dead in an apartment complex carport, a former Army private has been charged, California prosecutors say.
Willie Eugene Sims, 69, of Ohio was charged in the 1977 killing of Jeanette Ralston, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said in a May 6 news release.
Body found
Friends last saw the San Mateo woman alive when she left Lion’s Den Bar in San Jose with an unknown man shortly before midnight Jan. 31, 1977, prosecutors said.
The next day, Ralston was found dead in the carport of a nearby apartment complex, prosecutors said.
Her body was “wedged tightly in the back seat of her Volkswagen Beetle,” prosecutors said.
Through an autopsy, the medical examiner determined Ralston was strangled to death with the long-sleeved dress shirt that was found around her neck, according to prosecutors.
The medical examiner also found signs she had been sexually assaulted, prosecutors said.
Ralston’s accused killer tried to set her car ablaze, but it didn’t burn, prosecutors said.
With no suspects, her case went cold, prosecutors said.
Fingerprint offers clue
Then, decades later, investigators found a fingerprint on Ralston’s pack of Eve cigarettes was a match to Sims in August, prosecutors said.
At the time of Ralston’s death, Sims was an Army private stationed at Fort Ord in Monterey County, according to prosecutors.
In 1978, Sims was convicted in an assault with intent to murder case, prosecutors said.
Sims moved out of state, and his DNA was never entered into the Combined DNA Index System, a criminal justice DNA database, prosecutors said.
DNA testing IDs suspect
Investigators traveled to Ohio “earlier this year” and got a DNA sample from Sims, prosecutors said.
Through testing, investigators found Sims’ DNA was a match to DNA found on “Ralston’s fingernails and the shirt used to strangle her,” prosecutors said.
“Every day, forensic science grows better, and every day criminals are closer to being caught,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in the release. “Cases may grow old and be forgotten by the public. We don’t forget and we don’t give up.”
Sims, who is awaiting extradition to California, was scheduled to be arraigned in Jefferson, Ohio, on Tuesday, May 6, prosecutors said.
If convicted as charged, prosecutors said “Sims faces 25-years-to-life in prison.”
This story was originally published May 6, 2025 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Fingerprint on cigarette pack helps solve cold case from 1977, CA officials say."
