After 45 years, the suspect in the 1979 sexual assault and murder of 17-year-old Esther Gonzalez has been identified as Lewis Randolph “Randy” Williamson. Williamson died in Florida in 2014.
https://dnasolves.com/articles/esther-gonzalez-california
This is the 50th publicly-announced case in the State of California where officials have utilized technology developed by Othram to solve a case. It also the first solved case processed with Othram’s new MDFI platform. MDFI stands for Multi-Dimensional Forensic Intelligence. The platform has been successful in cases previously thought to be unsolvable.
https://research.othram.com/othram-mdfi
It sounds like the only real shot in the OCCK case.
The summary of the case of Esther Gonzalez is interesting for another reason. Randy Williamson, the killer, was cleared by polygraph in 1979. Oh yeah, the “gold standard” of the era. He was polygraphed after police identified him as the anonymous caller who reported a dead body on the road where Esther was found. One of those freaks who engages with law enforcement after killing.
In 1977, Greg Greene, Chris Busch were cleared by MSP’s finest polygraphers. Except we know from Guarded by Jackals: Predators, the Public Officials Who Protected Them and Resolution of Michigan’s Most Notorious Cold Case (2024, available on Amazon) why Busch and Greene “passed” and the shell game that was played with Greene’s four polygraphs. If you haven’t read the book you need to. In fact, at this page there is a free link to the first nine chapters of the book, including Chapter 9–A Tale of Two Polygraphs.
If you are a careful reader of this blog, you know that John Hastings’ name was provided to the OCCK task force in 1977. You also know that because he, like dead Randy, flapped his gums, police circled back around to him in 1992 and he took and passed a polygraph (in my brother’s case only) by another of Michigan’s finest at that time. You also know that he took polygraphs in the other three murder cases (Mark, Jill, Kristine) in Georgia in 2009, at the request of the Michigan State Police; that they didn’t go very well; and that the results were not followed up on and were then buried by MSP Det/Sgt Garry Gray.
See, for example:
As you also know, there are no DNA matches so far in this case, which is no surprise when the evidence in these four homicides supposedly consists of two degraded hairs and a Y-str DNA sample from one of murders. The other evidence has been mishandled, improperly stored, and not subjected to the most advanced DNA testing available and designed, as described above, for seemingly hopeless cases like the OCCK case.
There’s seemingly hopeless and then there’s hopeless by design.