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Davis Enterprise, The (CA)
Was Gallego behind Davis deaths?
Joel Davis/Special to The Enterprise
Published: July 21, 2002
"Sex slave" killer Gerald Gallego,
who died Thursday of rectal cancer in a Nevada prison hospital, is
still suspected by many to be behind the brutal slayings of a popular
young Davis couple in 1980.
Linked to 10 murders from 1978 to 1980 and convicted of four of them, Gallego
and his wife, Charlene, were arrested Nov. 17, 1980, for killing two
Cal State Sacramento students who were abducted Nov. 2, 1980, in the
Arden Fair mall parking lot.
Forty-eight days later, in perhaps the most shocking crime in Davis
history, sweethearts John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves, both 18, were
kidnapped on Dec. 20, 1980, in Riggins' van on a foggy night, most
likely at the shopping center at Anderson Road and Covell Boulevard or
at Gonsalves' North Davis condominium.
Their bodies were found two days later 35 miles east of Davis in a
ravine off Highway 50 behind what is now the Folsom Automall. Their
heads were wrapped in duct tape, their throats slit. Riggins was
beaten, Gonsalves likely raped.
UC Davis freshmen who began dating in the summer of 1980, Riggins, who
grew up in Davis, and Gonsalves, a military brat, were beloved Davis
parks and recreation leaders whose lives were so wholesome that their
lack of "a past" actually hurt the investigation of the baffling case.
For years, everyone from psychics to FBI profilers tried solving the
mystery with no success. In 1987, then-Davis Police Detective Fred
Turner received a tip from Sacramento authorities via an informant that
David Hunt, Gallego's fiercely loyal half-brother, may have killed the Davis couple in a copycat murder to shed doubt that Gallego -- in jail during the Davis slayings -- killed the Sacramento couple.
Turner doggedly pursued the Hunt lead after learning that Hunt was in
federal prison for kidnapping a young couple in Washington state in
1985. His suspicion grew when he learned that Hunt was married a 2
1/2-hour drive from Davis in Carson City, Nev., the afternoon of the
killings -- and not Las Vegas as both he and his wife, Suellen,
originally claimed.
In November 1989, Hunt, Suellen and Hunt's longtime crime partner,
Richard Thompson, were charged with the murders by Yolo County District
Attorney David Henderson. The action was taken after Sacramento County
authorities, who did not believe there was enough evidence and found
Turner's investigation overzealous, passed on the case.
In 1990, a fourth suspect was arrested. Douglas Lainer had been given a
$1,000 check by Suellen Hunt the day before the Riggins-Gonsalves
slayings. Lainer was suspected of driving Riggins' van around as a
decoy the day after the murders.
A time-consuming and costly sequence of legal maneuvers followed as the
suspects, all facing the death penalty, were bound over for trial,
which was moved to Sonoma County because of extensive publicity.
Henderson's case was swiftly derailed on the eve of the trial in 1993
when a blanket found in the victims' van that was never closely
examined in 1980 tested positive for semen. But DNA from the semen did
not match Hunt, Thompson, Lainer or Riggins.
Unable to explain the semen stains, Henderson dropped the case.
Subsequent DNA tests of the suspects' associates and relatives proved
negative, and the case has been dormant for years.
Despite the DNA, many remain convinced that the Hunt group killed Riggins and Gonsalves to spring Gallego.
They include Gonsalves' family and Yolo County authorities who worked
the case, including Henderson and Turner, who believes the blanket
semen was planted after 1980.
Sabrina's father, George Gonsalves, said this weekend he is "happy to hear that another serial killer is dead," but added that Gallego should have been executed 20 years ago.
"All I can think about is the suffering the families of his victims have experienced, without any real justice," he said.
The Rigginses are skeptical of the Gallego-Hunt theory, though John's mother, Kate, said "justice has been served, a little bit" when told of Gallego's death.
Still in federal prison for the 1985 kidnapping, David Hunt is due for
release in 2005. Suellen Hunt lives with her ailing mother in Alameda,
and Lainer lives in Hayward, where he works as a truck driver. Thompson
died in 1998 of emphysema at the age of 60 in Corcoran State Prison.
All but Hunt filed lawsuits against Yolo County and the city of Davis
for, among other things, emotional distress and wrongful imprisonment.
The claims have all been dropped.
There is still a reward fund for a conviction in the Riggins-Gonsalves
case. Experts say if it is solved it will likely be through a DNA match
from the blanket semen. The samples are stored in the California
Department of Justice Convicted Felon Databank. DNA from unsolved
crimes is compared to the DNA profiles in the databank; matches in
unsolved cases are known as "cold hits."
Originally tested using the less precise polymerase chain reaction
(PCR) method, the blanket stains have since been retested using short
tandem repeats (STR) typing, a more precise method that can produce
cold hits. So far, according to a DOJ spokesman, there have been no
matches.
-- Joel Davis, a former Davis Enterprise staff writer, is a Sacramento
journalist and college journalism instructor who is writing a book on
the Riggins-Gonsalves case, "Justice Waits: You're Missed, John &
Sabrina." He can be reached at davis916@attbi.com
Sunday, July 21, 2002
Copyright, 2002, The Davis Enterprise. All Rights Reserved.
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