On March 11 1979, 23 year old Alma Zuniga was fatally shot and stabbed.
The 23 year old’s remains were found in a shallow grave in an El Rio agriculture field off North Rose Avenue.
Members of the Ventura County Cold Case Homicide Task Force say DNA from a criminal data base helped them solve the case.
With assistance from Bakersfield Police, officers arrested 63 year old John Clark Russel outside a gym Thursday and served a search warrant at his Bakersfield home.
http://liarcatchers.com/cold_cases.html
After the murder, Zuniga’s toddler son moved to New Mexico to be raised by his grandmother.
By phone Jaime Zuniga said he was shocked, and relieved.
Jaime Zuniga says his Mother moved to Oxnard with him after his parents split up.
But the day she was murdered they were trying to work things out on the telephone.
His mother was on a payphone outside a bar talking long distance to his father in Oklahoma.
His father told him that he had heard the attack on his mother and had called 9-1-1.
Zuniga says he has overcome a lot.
Zuniga says relatives suspected his father at first.
But his father wasn’t in California at the time of the murder.
Years ago he reunited with his father in Mexico and then found out his father was murdered in Mexico after his half brother was kidnapped.
Zuniga is raising a family and now studying to be a physical therapist.
Jaime Zuniga says his mother would have turned 57 tomorrow, July 28th.
Anyone with information about this cold case or others is urged to call Detective Sergeant Rhodes at (805)384-4724 or Ventura County Crime Stoppers at 1(800)-222-TIPS(8477)
