A California man has been sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a 15-year-old girl 40 years ago. Gary Gene Ramirez, 78, entered a no contest plea in May to the murder of Karen Stitt, who was stabbed 59 times after she was left waiting at a bus stop in Palo Alto in 1982.

Karen was on a date with her boyfriend David Woods on September 2, 1982, where they played video games and mini-golf before he dropped her off at the bus stop just after midnight. Woods left the teen, who was waiting for the route 22 bus to take her the 10-mile (16km) journey home to Sunnyvale, after he became anxious about being late and his parents finding out.

A delivery driver found the girl’s naked body behind a blood-stained cinder block wall just 100 yards from the bus stop the next morning. She had been stabbed in the neck, abdomen and chest and had her wrists tied with her shirt, with her jacket tied around her ankle.

Breakthrough After Decades

Police had been baffled by the crime for almost 40 years until a tip-off in 2019 told them Karen’s killer was one of four brothers from Fresno, California. Detectives then started working with genetic genealogy experts who compared DNA found at the crime scene with samples from the brothers’ children.

This led them to Ramirez, who was arrested at his home in Maui, Hawaii on August 2, 2022. The 75-year-old simply replied: “Oh, my gosh” when police approached him. 

Ramirez had led an unassuming life with no prior criminal record and had various jobs, including working as an exterminator in Hawaii after serving in the US Air Force. He had been married twice and had two children and nobody had ever suspected he was involved in one of the West Coast’s most notorious unsolved crimes.

Emotional Sentencing Hearing

At his no contest plea, Ramirez sat motionless in the courtroom as victim impact statements were read out. Karen’s best friend Tracy Lancaster said: “Since Karen was brutally taken from us, there have been many unanswered questions - ‘why’ being the biggest.”

Friend Michael Calhoun added: “Just because you’ve been caught, finally, and you will start serving your sentence - your punishment for your brutally gruesome crime - there will still never be closure. Karen is gone. We will never get her back.” 

Karen’s boyfriend David Woods, who was on that final date with her, was in court with his wife for the hearing. He told the court: “His heinous crime, that ended her life in such a horrific way, has caused deep heartache and continued suffering for the many that loved Karen Stitt.”

Ramirez was sentenced to life in prison and will only be eligible for parole after 25 years. Karen’s father and sister had died before seeing justice done, but her remaining family members expressed relief at finally getting answers after more than four decades of uncertainty.