“It’s never too late to identify a killer,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “People may forget. But victims’ families and my Office do not.”
The 33-year-old cold case murder of a 14-year-old California boy has been solved after police say the killer was shot and killed by the FBI in 2007 while living under a different name in Ohio, authorities announced.
The teenager, Raymond Ojeda, was killed in San Jose on Sept. 28, 1991, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office.
His killer, Gerardo Aguilar, who was 15 years old at the time, was identified by police and a juvenile warrant was issued for his arrest but he disappeared before he could be apprehended, officials said.
Earlier this year, the DA’s Cold Case Unit identified a man living in Ohio under the name Gerardo Mulato as a match for Aguilar, officials announced.
Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office investigator John Cary, who said he was going off a “hunch,” did a background search and found that Aguilar’s sister’s last name was Mulato. He said he then found photographs of a man “who looked a lot like the suspect” and went by the name “Gerardo Mulato,” in Forest Park, living just outside of Cincinnati.
“DNA analysis confirmed they were the same person. Aguilar had been living in Ohio under the (last) name Mulato for several years,” the DA’s office said.
Mulato, or Aguilar, was killed in 2007 during a shootout with the FBI in connection with a drug trafficking investigation,
“It’s never too late to identify a killer,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said in a statement. “People may forget. But victims’ families and my Office do not.”
