California man exonerated, 2 arrested in 1998 killing

In this photo provided by California Innocence Project, Horace Roberts walks out of Avenal State Prison in Avenal, Calif., on Oct. 3, 2018. Roberts, wrongly convicted of murdering his lover two decades ago has been exonerated and new arrests have been made in the case. (California Innocence Project via AP) less

This photo provided by California Innocence Project shows Horace Roberts, right, walking out of Avenal State Prison with California Innocence Project managing attorney Michael Semanchik after being released from Avenal State Prison in Avenal, Calif., Oct. 3, 2018. Roberts, wrongly convicted of murdering his lover two decades ago has been exonerated and new arrests have been made in the case. (California Innocence Project via AP) less

This Oct. 3, 2018 photo provided by California Innocence Project shows Horace Roberts looking out the window of a car after being released from Avenal State Prison in Avenal, Calif. Roberts, wrongly convicted of murdering his lover two decades ago has been exonerated and new arrests have been made in the case. (California Innocence Project via AP) less

In this photo provided by California Innocence Project Horace Roberts, left, has his first meal after walking out of Avenal State Prison with California Innocence Project managing attorney Michael Semanchik in Avenal, Calif., Oct. 3, 2018. Roberts, wrongly convicted of murdering his lover two decades ago has been exonerated and new arrests have been made in the case. (California Innocence Project via AP) less

Kevin was 10 when he disappeared off the streets of San Francisco in February 1984. His disappearance represented a turning point in abduction awareness.

Before he vanished, missing children were often classified as "runaways" or "off on a lark," but Kevin's disappearance prompted a massive search effort -- including a nationwide distribution of flyers, pictures of the boy on milk cartons and pleas from local politicians. Such responses later became commonplace.

Though police at one point had a suspect in mind, a man seen chatting with Kevin on a doorstep near Oak and Masonic streets where he was last seen, the case remains baffling to police.

"This is a case that haunts the San Francisco Police Department and the city of San Francisco," Chief Greg Suhr said in 2013. "We carry it with us every day."

Before he vanished, missing children were often

In what investigators call the most heinous crime in San Mateo's history, three employees at the Pay Less Super Drug store on Concar Drive were brutally murdered, the store was robbed and the perpetrators have been free for the three decades since Feb. 4, 1979.

That night Michael Olsen and William Baumgartner were in the back office going through the day's receipts. That's where they were confronted by the killer, or killers, who shot them both in the head and made of with roughly $20,000, leaving rolls of pennies behind.

Downstairs in a stockroom, Tracy Anderson armed himself with a horseshoe, perhaps having heard the gunshots. He was found by police shot in the back of the head, but still alive. He died later in a nearby hospital.

Though police interviewed a number of potential suspects, even arresting a former employee, George A. Bandy, who failed a polygraph test, they were never able to cobble together enough evidence to press charges. Police still consider him their prime suspect.

"It's one of those cases that if you worked on it, it just doesn't go away," said Bob Luca, a Department of Justice investigator who worked on the case in its early days. "

Though police have their suspicions about Bandy and a $75,000 reward has been offered, no one has been charged in the triple slaying.

Photo: Michael Macor

On May 27, 1994, two days after her 14th birthday, Jenny was discovered murdered in her Castro Valley home.

The teen had last spoken with a friend that day around 5:15 p.m. When her father got home around 6:45, he found her body in the bathroom.

She was partially nude and had been stabbed repeatedly.

Using search dogs, police tracked a scent across a field behind the home, but the trail went cold and police were left baffled.

Investigators briefly thought they had identified the culprit when a convicted murderer serving time in Oregon became their prime suspect, but the district attorney never filed charges.

The case remains open to this day.

The teen had last spoken with a friend that day around 5:15 p.m. When her father got home around

Arlis Perry was murdered in Stanford Memorial Church in 1974.

Discovered half-nude the morning of Oct. 13, the 19-year-old newlywed had been violated with an altar candle prior to being strangled and stabbed.

She had gone to the church the night before her body was found to pray and meditate, but had apparently been locked in the building with her attacker. A retired officer from the Stanford police force said the case came to haunt the department.

"It was an awful thing," said Raoul Niemeyer, who served at Stanford for roughly 25 years. "I was really upset and we became almost obsessed with trying to solve the murder."

Despite the near-obsession, Perry's killer was never found. less

Arlis Perry was murdered in Stanford Memorial Church in 1974.

Discovered half-nude the morning of Oct. 13, the 19-year-old newlywed had been violated with an altar candle prior to being strangled and stabbed.

On Aug. 14, 2006, Aubrey was enjoying a day at his home near the intersection of Grove and Baker streets in San Francisco.

The 17-year-old was shot several times as more than 30 rounds were fired from an automatic weapon in the normally quiet Nopa neighborhood. Police say the teen may have been the unintended target of a shooter looking for someone else.

He died five hours later at San Francisco General Hospital.

Aubrey coached junior leagues in both basketball and baseball. Police looked into whether the shooting was related to him intervening in a scuffle during a basketball game the week before his death.

Nine years after his death, a $250,000 reward is offered for information leading to his killers.

The 17-year-old was shot several times as more than 30 rounds were fired from an

Tanya Blackwell left her home on Heathcliff Drive in Pacifica on Jan. 24, 1976, reportedly walking to a 7-Eleven store on King Drive in South San Francisco. Her body was located months later off Gypsy Hill Road.

Blackwell was one of five young women thought to have fallen victim to the so-called Gypsy Hill killer in early 1976. Three of the five women showed signs of sexual assault prior to their deaths.

The other four women were Ronnie Cascio, 18, Paula Baxter, 17, Denise Lampe, 19, and Carol Lee Booth, 26.

Authorities recently linked the 1976 murder of Michelle Mitchell, a 19-year-old student in Reno, to the Gypsy Hill murders. FBI officials named a new "person of interest," 66-year-old Rodney L. Halbower, after DNA evidence they had obtained in the Reno murder was linked to the killings in the Bay Area.

Halbower is in prison in Oregon in an unrelated case.

Perhaps the most notorious unsolved case in Bay Area history is that of the Zodiac killer.

Blamed for at least five murders in northern California between 1968 and 1969, the Zodiac taunted local law enforcement agencies and newspapers, including The Chronicle, with cryptograms like the one pictured above.

The list of possible suspects is long and storied, with conspiracy theorists alleging the crimes were committed by everyone from real estate agents to career criminals.

Law enforcement officials say they still receive two or three tips a week about the case, but despite the hundreds of theories floating about, an award-winning movie about the case and countless leads being investigated, police have never been able to pin the vicious murders on a suspect.

Blamed for at least five murders in northern California between 1968 and 1969, the Zodiac taunted local law

Photo: The Chronicle

An 82-year-old El Cerrito resident, Kwon was found beaten and sexually assaulted outside a Big O Tires store on San Pablo Avenue in January 2012.

She died roughly seven months later from injuries sustained in the attack.

"We want to solve this case more than anything," said Richmond police Sgt. Stina Johanson. "This was someone's grandma and whoever did this obviously has some serious issues. I would hate to see this happen again."

Johanson said the case remains open and she hopes the perpetrator may have said something about the attack to someone who will come forward to police.

Kim Wendy Allen (above), a 19-year-old student at Santa Rosa Junior College, was one of seven women slain while hitchhiking along highways in and around Santa Rosa in the early 1970s.

The spree began in February of 1972 when Yvonne Weber and Maureen Sterling, both 13, were thumbing rides on Guerneville Road.

The pair disappeared and their bones were found 10 months later in the hills outside Santa Rosa.

Over the course of the next 18 months, six more women went missing in the area, with five of their bodies found thrown on the side of Northern California roads or pitched down steep embankments. One victim was never found, but is presumed dead.

Though the causes of death in the cases were different -- two were strangled, one was bludgeoned, one was poisoned -- each of the women was last seen hitchhiking along deserted highways.

A number of suspects were investigated, including the Zodiac Killer and serial murderer Ted Bundy, but police never made any arrests.

The spree began in

Photo: Front Page Detective Magazine

Lisa, 15, left an Antioch dance alone the night of Nov. 6, 1998, reportedly angry after a fight with a boy.

Her body was discovered a week later on the side of the Pittsburg-Antioch Highway. Police released few details about her death, saying only that she died of asphyxiation.

Two men suspected of killing the girl were arrested a couple of months later, but were never charged after prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence.

In a bizarre twist, a Contra Costa fire captain facing numerous child molestation charges, Duanne Shoemake, made a deal with the district attorney's office to exchange evidence in the Norrell case. Despite having the charges against him dropped, the evidence provided by Shoemake never resulted in any arrests and the case remains open to this day.

Her body was discovered a week later on the side of the Pittsburg-Antioch Highway. Police released

California man exonerated, 2 arrested in 1998 killing

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man wrongly convicted of murdering his lover two decades ago has been exonerated and new arrests have been made in the case, authorities said Monday.

Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin announced the arrests of Googie Harris and Joaquin Leal in the 1998 strangling of Terry Cheek, whose body was found on a lake shore. Harris was Cheek's husband and Leal is Harris' nephew.

Cheek's lover, Horace Roberts, was declared innocent and released from prison on Oct. 3. He was reunited with family in South Carolina, according to the California Innocence Project. The nonprofit took up his case in 2003 and hailed the exoneration as justice served.

The California Innocence Project posted a video showing Roberts, 60, tossing his prison clothes into a trash can after more than 20 years and savoring a Pepsi in the back seat of his attorney's car.

"This is what I missed more than anything — my freedom," Roberts said with a smile.

Harris and Leal were arrested Friday after new DNA tests connected them to the crime, Hestrin said. They're being held in lieu of $1 million bail and were expected to appear in court Tuesday. It wasn't immediately known if they have attorneys who could comment for them.

"Googie Harris set Roberts up," the California Innocence Project's Justin Brooks said in a statement. "It's the oldest story there is in the murder business. Husband kills wife who is cheating on him. The twist in this case is that the husband then set up the lover to go to prison for the rest of his life."

In 2017, crime scene evidence was sent to the California Department of Justice laboratory in Riverside. DNA on a watch found with Cheek's body was matched to Leal in March, prosecutors said, and he and Harris became the focus of a new probe.