The murder of Jeanette Ralston
San Jose, Santa Clara County, California · 1977
Overview
Jeanette Ralston, 24, of San Mateo, California, was last seen leaving the Lion's Den Bar in San Jose with an unknown man just before midnight on January 31, 1977. She told friends she would be back in ten minutes. The next day, February 1, her body was found wedged in the back seat of her Volkswagen Beetle in the carport area of an apartment complex near the bar. Prosecutors said she had been strangled with a long-sleeve dress shirt and that the evidence showed she had been sexually assaulted; someone had also tried and failed to set the car on fire. Police interviewed her friends and other witnesses and made a suspect sketch, but no suspect was identified and the case went cold for nearly half a century. Prosecutors said a latent fingerprint on a cigarette pack in her car could not at first be identified through an FBI database. After the FBI upgraded its fingerprint search algorithm, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's cold case prosecutors ran the prints again in 2024 and, in August, matched them to Willie Eugene Sims, who in 1977 was an Army private at Fort Ord. Investigators then collected his DNA in Ohio, and prosecutors said it matched DNA on Ralston's fingernails and on the shirt used to strangle her. Sims, 69, was charged with murder in May 2025. He is presumed innocent; as of the latest reports found, from May 2025, he had not entered a plea.
How it was solved
The case was solved by a fingerprint that waited years for a better search. In 1977 police interviewed Jeanette Ralston's friends and other witnesses and made a suspect sketch, but no suspect was identified and the investigation went cold. Among the evidence was a latent fingerprint on a cigarette pack in her car; the Associated Press described a thumbprint on a carton. Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker said investigators had tried to identify the prints through an FBI database, but those efforts proved futile. According to People, the FBI upgraded its fingerprint search algorithm in 2018, allowing more accurate and expansive matches. Baker said his office then threw a Hail Mary in 2024 and ran all of the prints from the crime scene through the FBI database one last time. In August 2024, he said, San Jose police fingerprint examiners told his office they had a match. It was Willie Eugene Sims, who in 1977 was an Army private at Fort Ord, who was convicted in 1978 in Monterey County of assault to commit murder in a separate case, and who had moved out of California before his DNA could be entered into the state database. NBC reported that his prints were in the FBI's database, but that Baker was not notified of his identity until August. With the fingerprint match in hand, investigators from the DA's office and San Jose police went to Ohio in early 2025, with help from Ashtabula County authorities, and collected a DNA sample. Prosecutors said the crime lab found it consistent with DNA on Ralston's fingernails and on the shirt used to strangle her, and Baker said a statistical tool called STRmix helped develop DNA profiles from the evidence. So DNA came afterward, as corroboration of the fingerprint match, not as the way the suspect was found. Sims was charged with murder in May 2025. He is presumed innocent, and no trial outcome had been reported in the sources reviewed.
Sources
- Fingerprints found on a cigarette pack helped solve a 50-year-old cold case in California, authorities say (May 7, 2025)
“Baker said investigators had sought to identify the prints through an FBI database. But those efforts proved futile, he said. Then, Baker said, his office "threw a Hail Mary" last year and ran the prints again after the FBI updated the search algorithm in the fingerprint database.”
- DNA found on cigarette carton leads to major break in 1977 San Jose cold case murder (May 7, 2025)
“Baker said it was last August when they had a breakthrough. They retested the fingerprints found on a carton of cigarettes in Ralston's car. "Just about a year ago I was like hey, let's run those prints again to see if we get lucky," Baker said. And they did. The prints matched to 69-year-old Willie Eugene Sims in Ohio.”
- Thumbprint on cigarette carton leads to arrest in 1977 death of young woman (May 13, 2025)
“Police interviewed the friends and other witnesses and created a suspect sketch. But the investigation went cold. A thumbprint found on Ralston's cigarette carton in her car was found to match Sims last fall after law enforcement had asked to run the print through the FBI's updated system, prosecutors said.”
- DNA from cigarette packet links former Fort Ord Army private to 1977 murder (May 7, 2025)
“Friends of Ralston reported she was last seen leaving the Lion's Den Bar with an unknown man just before midnight on January 31, 1977. Ralston was found dead, wedged in the back seat of her Volkswagen Beetle in the carport area of an apartment complex near the bar, according to the district attorney's office. The medical examiner determined that Ralston had been strangled to death with a long-sleeved dress shirt.”
- California 1977 cold-case murder suspect identified as 69-year-old former Army private living in Ohio (May 8, 2025)
“"This is a case that's been haunting all the cold-case prosecutors for literally since 2011, when [our] Cold Case Unit was established," Santa Clara Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker told Fox News Digital. "About a year ago, we decided, 'Hey, let's have the fingerprints in this case checked again.' We caught a break last summer when we sent the fingerprints out, and we got a hit, which led us to the front door of Mr. Sims's home in Ohio."”
- A Murder, a Cigarette, and a 50-Year Mystery: Cops Think They've Cracked Woman's Slaying Inside Volkswagen Beetle (May 12, 2025)
“"The big break happened last summer when the San Jose Police fingerprint examiners told us we had a match that led our investigators to a small town in Ohio six months later," he added. The match came from a latent fingerprint found on the cigarette pack discovered in Ralston's car. The evidence had sat idle in the case files for decades — but a 2018 upgrade to the FBI's fingerprint search algorithm, which allowed for more accurate and expansive matches, ultimately reopened the case.”
- 69-year-old Ashtabula County man charged for 1977 cold-case homicide in California
“An Ashtabula County man accused of killing a woman in California nearly 50 years ago is headed back to the West Coast to face charges. According to the Ashtabula County Prosecutor's Office, 69-year-old Willie Eugene Sims of Jefferson, Ohio, is charged with murder out of the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office for allegedly strangling Jeanette Ralston to death on Feb. 1, 1977.”
- Son of woman found strangled to death in 1977 reacts to suspect's arrest (May 7, 2025)
“The sheriff's office said they worked with the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office and its Cold Case Unit as well as the San Jose Police Department to identify and locate Sims.”
- Ohio man connected to 1977 killing of woman in California now facing charges
“Sims had been convicted for an assault to commit murder in 1978. He moved out of state before his DNA was entered into the California database, according to the release. Investigators travelled to Ohio to collect Sims' DNA weeks ago, and found that it matched DNA found on Ralston's fingernails and the shirt used in her strangulation, according to the release.”
- Cold Cases Solved
“In 2024, a fingerprint identified from a cigarette carton in her vehicle led investigators to Ohio resident Willie Sims.”