Woman charged with killing her baby decades ago
Authorities have arrested the mother of an unidentified baby boy found dead in Castro Valley 32 years ago, after connecting her to the crime using pioneering genetic genealogy that has helped crack dozens of cold cases nationwide in the past two years.
Investigators were able to identify the mother of the newborn boy, who was known only as Baby John Doe, using genetic genealogy, a method of linking crimescene DNA with public portals of ancestry information. The technique has surged in popularity since 2018, when it helped California law enforcement agencies nab the infamous Golden State Killer. Since then, genealogyaided investigations have rippled throughout the nation, helping unearth new leads and solve cases that have baffled detectives for decades.
Lesa Lopez, a 52yearold woman from Salida (Stanislaus County), was taken into custody July 23, a week after detectives obtained a warrant for her arrest, according to the Alameda County Sheriff ’s Office. Prosecutors have since charged her with murder and alleged special circumstances involving use of a deadly weapon — a ligature — as well as causing great bodily injury.
Lopez was being held Monday at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on $2 million bail. Her next hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.
“We were very glad that we could identify a suspect in this case after so long, because that little boy, he never had an opportunity,” said Pat Smyth, a detective with the Sheriff ’s Office.
Baby John Doe stood out from other coldcase victims, who typically have a surviving parent, child or spouse seeking justice on their behalf, Smyth said.
“Here it was just the opposite,” he said. “The person who was supposed to be nurturing this child is now the one who is going to be responsible in his death.”
On May 15, 1988, two juveniles walking along “old” Madison Avenue north of Seaview Avenue found the body of the baby boy inside a bag, dumped among trees and bushes on an embankment, officials said.
The Chronicle’s coverage described the baby as a 2 to 3dayold, darkhaired Caucasian boy, who was born full term but not delivered in a hospital. The baby was wearing a light blue, adultsize shirt with a Garfield the Cat logo. The baby appeared to have been strangled, and the death was ruled a homicide.
Investigators at that time contacted local hospitals, distributed press releases and conducted followup investigations in search of the mother, but the case went cold for the next three decades.
In July 1988, approximately 200 people attended a funeral for the boy. The funeral was provided by the leaders of St.
Leander Church in San Leandro, where the Rev. Robert Rein posthumously named the boy Richard Jayson Terrance Rein, in honor of the pastors and vicars at the church.
Investigators made a major break in the case in 2005, when the sheriff ’s crime lab produced a female DNA profile from the scene where the baby was discovered. The profile was run through a national data bank of offenders, but produced no hits.
Thirteen years would pass until a separate investigation transformed the world of cold cases.
Until the 2018 arrest of Golden State Killer Joseph James DeAngelo, a Citrus Heights (Sacramento County) man in his 70s, genetic genealogy was a littleknown tool typically used by hobbyists to build family trees. But by applying that logic to police work, linking the Golden State Killer’s DNA to distant relatives, investigators were at last able to put a name on the man believed to have committed 12 murders and at least 50 rapes across the state during the 1970s and ’80s.
In late June, DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 26 charges of murder and kidnapping while also admitting to numerous other crimes.
A torrent of genealogyaided investigations have followed DeAngelo’s arrest, many involving cases that went cold decades ago.
In the Bay Area, Vallejo police recently solved the near halfcenturyold case of Naomi Sanders, a 57yearold apartment manager who was raped and strangled in her home while she cooked dinner. The case was ultimately pinned on Robert Dale Edwards, who died in 1993 from a drug overdose.
DNA evidence and genealogy research also led police to Roy Charles Waller, a 58yearold UC Berkeley employee accused of sexually assaulting 10 women starting in 1991.
Coldcase investigators for the Alameda County Sheriff ’s Office reopened the Baby John Doe case last summer and began using publicly available genealogy sites, which can allow members of the public and law enforcement to build family trees based on close genetic matches.
With the help of genetic genealogist Dr. Barbara RaeVenter, and after crossreferencing the DNA profile with items found in Lopez’s trash, investigators linked crime scene evidence to her, officials said.
Lopez was 20 years old at the time of the baby’s death and lived in Castro Valley, authorities said. She allegedly told investigators she kept the pregnancy a secret from family and friends.
Colleen Fitzpatrick, a geneal
ogy expert who has worked with police on hundreds of cold cases, said Baby Doe cases represent a small portion of victims, as rape and other homicide investigations often take precedence. However, she said, the cases often strike a chord with investigators.
“Detectives would really, really like to solve them,” said Fitzpatrick, who estimated that the company she founded, Identifinders International, has worked on about a halfdozen such cases. “They put their heart in it — they have children, they have empathy for the victims.”
Court documents state that Lopez admitted to investigators that she was the mother of the boy and “made statements implicating herself in the crime.”
“Lopez identified the area where she placed the victim’s body and admitted she acted alone,” court records state.
Smyth said the case was a tragedy for all those involved, adding that Lopez now has a family of her own.
“That was the difficult part,” he said. “Because we knew that there was going to be another family that was destroyed by this.”