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A California man has been arrested for a 1994 murder after investigators said they found his DNA in a bite mark left on the female victim’s neck.
Sharron Eugene Gadlin, 48, of Gardena, was arrested on Friday and charged with first-degree murder for the 1994 killing of Cheri Huss, 39, the Riverside County District Attorney said in a press release.
He was filmed being led out to a police car from his home, before being handcuffed and bundled into the vehicle.
Huss was found dead in her Parma Drive apartment in Desert Hot Springs in April 1994 with multiple stab wounds and a bite mark on her neck. Authorities said she fought off her attacker, reportedly causing Gadlin’s body to be left on the scene, which was later matched with his DNA from the bite wound.
It is unclear how Gadlin, who was 20 at the time of the crime, got into Huss’ home and if the pair knew each other, or what the motive for the killing was.
The Regional Cold Case Team – which is made up a members of the DA’s Bureau of Investigations, Riverside County Sheriff-Coroner Department and police, and the FBI – was able to match his DNA using genetic genealogy and discovered he lived 12 miles away from Huss in Thousand Palms at the time of the crime.
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Cheri Huss, 39, was found dead in her Desert Hot Springs, California, apartment in April 1994 with several stab wounds and a bite mark on her neck
On Friday, Sharron Eugene Gadlin, 48, was arrested after his DNA from the bite wound and the saliva test taken on Valentine’s Day matched. The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said Huss had fought Gadlin before she was killed, causing him to bleed. His blood and DNA matched
After receiving a warrant, investigators obtained a saliva sample from Gadlin on Valentine’s Day and sent the sample to the Department of Justice’s lab, who confirmed his salvia and the blood from the scene matched.
In addition, the lab confirmed that the saliva matched the ‘DNA profile of the person suspected of murdering Cheri Huss,’ the DA’s Office said.
Gadlin was arrested after police pulled over his car on 135th and Western Avenue in Gardena. He is in custody at the Robert Presley Detention Center on a $1million bond.
In addition to first-degree murder, he has also been charged with a sentence-enhancing allegation of using a weapon during the felony, News Channel 3 reported.
‘I hope Cheri and her family will finally get the justice they deserve and have waited so long for,’ District Attorney Mike Hestrin said in the press release.
Gadlin was seen getting put into handcuffs on Friday in Gardena
He was arrested after the DNA match and after investigators discovered he only lived 12 miles from Huss in 1994
He was put into a squad car and taken to the Robert Presley Detention Center, where he remains on a $1million bond
‘Our cold case team of investigators will continue to use cutting-edge technology to solve old murder cases across Riverside County. Our prosecutors will continue to vigorously prosecute these murderers until we get justice for their victims.’
DailyMail.com has attempted to contact Huss’ family members and the Riverside DA’s Office for comment.
Earlier this month, a Pennsylvania college student helped crack a 1964 cold case involving a nine-year-old girl who was sexually assault and murdered after she tried to donate canned goods to a church.
Marise Ann Chiverella, nine, was last seen at around 8.10am on the morning of March 18, 1964.
Her body was found in a strip mine pit in Hazle Township, more than two miles away from her home, at 1pm. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted, police said, and the canned goods she was walking to the church were found near her body.
The case remained unsolved until earlier this month, when police announced the murderer as James Paul Forte, a bartender who died of natural causes, possibly a heart attack, in May 1980.
He had been arrested for an unrelated sexual assault in 1974, 10 years after he’s thought to have killed Chiverella.
Authorities were helped by Eric Schubert, 20, a student at Elizabethtown College who reached out to police two years ago and put together a family tree that helped lead them to Forte – a very distant relative who is not thought to have known Chiverella or her family.
‘This is a very important day for our department,’ said Col. Mark Baron, the lead investigator on the case, in a press conference on Thursday, according to NBC News.
‘Even though it took nearly 58 years for this case to be solved, I think this should instill in the families of victims across the state and across the country a sense of hope,’ he said.
Baron believes that Chiverella’s is the fourth-oldest case in the country to be solved using genetic genealogy.
Huss was found dead in her apartment on Parma Drive (pictured) in 1994
Chiverella’s family remembered her as a shy girl who dreamed of becoming a nun.
‘We have so many precious memories of Marise,’ said her sister, Carmen Marie Radtke.
‘At the same time, our family will always feel the emptiness and the sorrow of her absence.’
The 20-year-old college student became interested in genetic genealogy at age 10, according to WNEP.
‘I was home sick a lot when I was a kid, so I would see genealogy commercials, and I would say, “Wait a second, maybe I could do that.” And I thought it would be a two-week thing, but here I am, and I’m certainly thankful I started,’ Schubert said.
He’s helped out in other cold cases in Chicago and the Philadelphia area. He reached out to Pennsylvania state police when he was 18, two years ago, to see if he could help.
‘Just reaching out and saying, “Hey, I think I know what I’m doing. If I’m not stepping on any toes, I’d be happy to help.” I didn’t think that would work. But it did, and I’m very thankful for that because I knew that I could at least potentially get this case a little closer to being solved. And in the end, you know I’m happy we could pull it off,’ he said.
Source: dailymail
