As 9-year-old Beth Ringheim struggled to make sense of the gruesome
murder scene in her father's Dublin home, she formed a terrifying
question: Who would do such a thing? Nearly three decades later,
neither she -- nor Alameda County Sheriff's Office homicide
detectives -- have any idea.
Her father, Harve Ringheim, a Pleasant Hill veterinarian, had been
stabbed in the head, heart and neck. Her stepmother, Keiko, tightly
bound with duct tape, was facedown in bucket of water. She had been
strangled. But an investigation into the Jan. 24, 1986, incident found
no fingerprints and no signs of forced entry, and no motive emerged as
months, years and eventually decades passed by.
The Alameda County coroner removes the bodies of Harve and Keiko
Ringheim, who were killed in their Dublin, Calif., home on Jan.
24, 1986. (Michael Macor / Oakland Tribune)
"No father and no closure is a feeling I can't describe," said
Ringheim, 38, a marriage and family therapist still looking for
answers.
The desire to provide that closure -- and to capture killers -- is why
police departments around the Bay Area and across the country keep
files on "cold cases," unsolved crimes that are no longer actively
investigated but that detectives just can't bear to close.
As time passes and memories fade, most will never be solved. But hope
endures for a deathbed confession or a conscience-stricken witness --
and such technological advances as DNA analysis sometimes give old
cases new life.
"You never let go of the feeling that you owe it to the victims and
their family to bring suspects to justice," Hayward homicide detective
Zach Hoyer said.
This newspaper asked law enforcement agencies across the region for
information on their oldest open homicide cases, and 56 responded with
at least one name. The cases range from the notorious -- the 1950s
car-bombing of a San Mateo County dog-race magnate, thought to be
linked to the mob -- to the heart-wrenching but little noticed, like
the 1965 kidnapping and stabbing of a 7-year-old Berkeley girl whose
body was found under a woodpile in a metal supply company yard. But 11
departments said they don't have any cold cases, not because they've
solved every murder but because they focus their resources on active
investigations far more likely to lead to resolution.
In San Jose, the budget-strapped department has eliminated its
cold-case team, Sgt. Heather Randol said. Still, it has a 52-year-old
cold case: the Feb. 26, 1962, beating of 30-year-old Maria Ventura. A
passing motorist found her body, clad only in a pair of stockings, in
a lot at Paula and Race streets just south of Interstate 280.
Detectives at the time believed Ventura was killed at another site and
dumped at the lot, where she was run over by the killer's car. No
suspect was ever identified, and no one in today's homicide unit has
spent any significant time with the case.
By contrast, the file of Castro Valley's 1938 homicide of a Jane Doe
has been checked out of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office evidence
room countless times -- sometimes for actual developments in the
case, such as a man's 1944 confession to shooting her (his story
didn't pan out). Most recently, in 2001, an investigator had the
case notes transcribed because the paperwork was deteriorating.
Detective Jason Hawks noticed the homicide date on her file on the
first day he took over the department's Cold Case Unit in July, and
he was curious enough to open it up. The file contained faded
newspaper clippings from when the woman's badly decomposed body,
unearthed from a shallow grave by wild animals, was discovered by a
dentist and his wife picnicking in Castro Valley's Redwood Canyon.
A photograph from a 1952 homicide cold case is displayed at the
San Mateo Police Department headquarters in San Mateo, Calif.,
on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014. Thomas Keen, a national dog track
owner, was killed by a car bomb (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
"I mean, 1938. It's kind of unbelievable," he said. "I'm trying to
think of how old my grandmother would be back then.
"We never had a real suspect with this one and with these ancient
cold cases, with no biological evidence on file, there's not much
left to go on."
It's rare in such an old case for there to be any evidence that can
benefit from modern DNA analysis.
The oldest cold case in the Bay Area is the 1924 San Francisco
robbery and strangulation of Angelo Domenichini, a 69-year-old
retired produce merchant who loved to flash his cash and jewels.
Sometimes cases remain open because investigators think they know
what happened -- if only they could get the evidence.
From right, Wendy Rose, who is the daughter of cold case victim
Clara Rose, 31, found fatally shot in her Los Gatos home on Jan.
19, 1979, sits beside her daughter, Jennifer Pico, and her
granddaughter, Maya, as they look at a picture of her. (Courtesy
of family). (Submitted)
That's the situation with Oakland's oldest case, the 1964 deaths of
Betty Martin, 43, and her daughter, Carolyn, 18, found hog-tied and
strangled inside their Crocker Highlands house. Carolyn was raped.
The prime suspect -- an acquaintance of Carolyn's -- is dead.
San Mateo's oldest case is the 1952 dynamite car-bombing of Tom
Keen, who built the country's first dog-racing track in Belmont in
the late 1930s. Keen also invented a device to show the odds and
projected payoff before a race, and police at the time were
convinced he was targeted by Mafia gangsters because he resisted
pressure to rig the device in their favor. Tellingly, Keen had
connections to Al Capone, on whose property outside Chicago he
helped build a dog-racing track.
But police could never pinpoint suspects.
"Anything that's been kept quiet for more than 50, 60 years likely
involves the Mafia, and typically people don't talk when the mob is
involved," said Officer Anthony Riccardi. "Ever."
Concord police have a detailed theory behind their oldest case, the
arson that killed five Walker siblings on Sept. 8, 1968.
Their lone suspect, Concord native John Sapp, was 15 at the time and
had just been released from juvenile hall. Police believe his target
was the man who incarcerated him, a Contra Costa Superior Court
judge who lived a few doors down from the Walkers in nearby Clayton,
Concord police Detective Sgt. Steve Chiabotti said.
At least the suspect is not at large; Sapp is on death row for three
other murders. But Carolyn Walker Shaw, the only child to survive
the fire that broke out as she and her siblings slept, still
worries.
"There's always been fear of going public," said Shaw, 52. "It's
like, who did it? Are they still around and would they want to harm
us again?"
The Bay Area cases may be frozen, but for many survivors, the
memories burn as brightly as they ever did.
"Tonight I'm sleepless on yet another anniversary of my mother's
murder, still waiting for justice to be served," Wendy Rose wrote
earlier this year on a Facebook page she set up for her mother,
marking the 35th anniversary of the day -- Jan. 19, 1979 -- that
Clara Rose, 31, was found shot in the Los Gatos townhome where she
lived with her two children and fiance.
Rose set up the page hoping someone, anyone, who knows something
will step forward.
"Unless something new breaks or someone confesses, I fear Mother's
case will remain frozen forever," she wrote.
As long as witnesses are alive and technology improves,
investigators say there is still a chance.
"Even if it takes years ... the most rewarding aspect of this job is
making an arrest and sharing the news with the victim's family,"
Hoyer said.
It happens. Last year the Alameda County Sheriff's Office solved the
Dec. 28, 1990, case of Stephen Rudiger, 43, who was found stabbed to
death at an East Bay Regional Parks on Dec. 28, 1990.
The case was cold until 2010, when authorities said they received a
tip that Rudiger was killed in his Castro Valley home, not in the
park. By combining old and new evidence with the power of DNA
technology, investigators were able to link the slaying to his
ex-wife, Cheryl Ann Drace, 58, of San Leandro, and her new husband,
William Joseph DeVincenzi, 52, who were later charged with murder.
The case of Harve Ringheim and his wife warmed up in 2011 after
detectives ran new DNA samples that proved at least two men were
involved in the slayings, which police believe were murder for hire.
The DNA samples were not complete enough for identification or to
run through DNA databases, but detectives say forensic technology
improvements mean they might be able to one day.
"Somebody out there knows everything," said Beth Ringheim, who is
grateful for the work investigators are doing. But she finds it hard
to be optimistic. "The cemetery is all we have, no answers, (and
I'm) losing hope."
