Suspect in 1974 MemChu murder kills before police search – The Stanford Daily



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Stephen Crawford, former security guard of the Church of Remembrance, died of an apparent suicide on Thursday morning after the police arrived at his San Jose apartment to serve a term of office. search.

Although he was first cleared by the murder of Arlis Perry on October 13, 1974, Crawford became the prime suspect in this case after the investigators again tested evidence DNA.

Sheriff County Sheriff Laurie Smith said that San Francisco Mercury News had been contacted by Crawford about weeks of cases before the detectives arrived at his apartment around 9 am Thursday morning.

According to the San Jose Police Department, the detectives entered Crawford's house, saw that he was armed with a firearm, came out of the apartment and were returned after hearing a gunshot inside.

In a telephone interview with Mercury News, Perry's 88-year-old mother, Jean Dykema, told the press that she wanted the case to be resolved more quickly and that her husband, deceased three months before Thursday, died. "Was possessed to want to know" who had murdered their daughter.

"I know that there is some one of far greater who will punish [Crawford]," said Dykema to Mercury News . "I do not have to do that."

In 2014, the Daily saw the murder of Perry nearly 40 years after it was committed. Perry would have walked alone to the Memorial Church around 11:30 pm. October 12 after an argument with her newly married husband. Around 5:40 the next morning, Crawford claimed to have found Perry's corpse in the church. She was lying on her face and was naked at the waist. An autopsy helped identify signs of strangulation, sexual abuse with the aid of a candlestick and an ice pick in Perry's head.

"We express our gratitude to the local law enforcement agencies for their decades-long efforts in trying to resolve this troubling case," EJ Miranda University spokesman said in an email. daily. "This remains a heartbreaking memory at the university Stanford has cooperated with the investigators for many years, and we know that they have worked tirelessly to try to bring this case to a successful conclusion."

Contact Holden Foreman at hs4man21 & # 39; at & # 39; stanford.edu. [19659017] [ad_2]
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