For over 45 years, the attack and murder of a Riverside County girl found in a snowpack was unsolved.
Using forensic genealogy, the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team was able to close the case this year, identifying the man who murdered 17-year-old Esther Gonzales in 1979. The team announced on Wednesday, Nov. 20 that Lewis Randolph “Randy” Williamson has been confirmed through DNA to be the rapist and killer.
Lewis Randolph “Randy” Williamson, pictured, was identified as the rapist and killer in a previously cold case from 1979. (Photo Courtesy of Riverside County District Attorney’s Office)
On Feb. 9, 1979, Gonzales left her parents’ home in Beaumont on foot, planning to go to her sister’s home in Banning. On this walk, she was raped and bludgeoned to death, her body found the next day in a snowpack on Highway 243, south of Poppet Flats Road near Banning.
The body was discovered after the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office in Banning received a phone call from an unknown caller reporting it. The caller was described by deputies as argumentative, according to a statement from the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office. Five days after the call, investigators identified the caller as Williamson and requested he complete a polygraph, which he passed, clearing him of wrongdoing at the time, though polygraph tests are not relied on so heavily today.
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DNA technology was not developed in 1979, but a semen sample recovered from the victim’s body and eventually uploaded into the Combined DNA Index system, or CODIS, a national DNA database system, became the key to clearing the case, which investigators had continued to work on since the time of the crime.
Continuing to search for leads, in 2023, investigators sent multiple pieces of evidence to Othram Inc., a company in Texas that conducts forensic investigative genetic genealogy casework.
In 2024, a crime analyst from the Riverside County cold case team determined that Williamson had never been cleared through DNA, only by the polygraph test.
Though Williamson died in Florida in 2014, a sample of his blood taken during his autopsy was sent to the California Department of Justice, which recently confirmed that Williamson’s DNA is a match to the DNA investigators found on Gonzales’ body, resulting in the case being closed after more than four decades of questions.
The Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Team asks anyone who knew Williamson or may have information about Gonzales’ case or other potential victims to call them at 951-955-2777 or email them at ColdCaseUnit@RivcoDA.org