‘It was the silent witness that revealed itself’
34 years after a Galt woman was raped and murdered, a suspect has been named
GALT — A decades-old Galt cold case was finally solved this week after authorities identified a suspect who died in 2011.
Galt Police Chief Brian Kalinowski and Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert announced Tuesday that Terry Leroy Bramble was responsible for the rape and murder of 79-year-old Lucille Hultgren in 1988.
“it was the silent witness that revealed itself in this case,” Schubert said. “And the person that revealed it for us, that truth, is Lucille herself. Because it was the evidence taken from her body that told us who killed her.”
On May 23, 1988, Galt officers responded to the report of a deceased woman on the 500 block of Poplar Street. Hultgren was found by two friends who had come to check on her after not attending church the day prior.
Kalinowski on Tuesday said the woman, later identified as Hultgren, was found on the bed in the master bedroom of her residence with visible injuries to her chest. He added that it appeared she had been sexually assaulted.
The coroner’s opinion at the time, Kalinowski said, was that the death had occurred two to five days prior to the discovery of Hultgren’s body, and that the cause of death was stab wounds to the chest, as well as strangulation.
“Lucille had been a Galt resident for about 25 years,” Kalinowksi said. “She moved to the area from Ohio with her family, and had lived on Poplar Street with her husband Frank, until his passing in 1987. They had two adult sons. She was active in the community, especially in her church.”
According to the Galt Herald, Hultgren moved to Galt in 1968, and was a homemaker and past president of the Women’s Civic Club of Galt.
She was last seen alive on May 20, 1988 when she celebrated her 79th birthday with neighbors, the Herald reported.
Bramble, a long-time resident and transient in Galt, was identified through a DNA match, which revealed
he had been a convicted sex offender stemming from a San Joaquin County case filed in 1992, Kalinowski said.
According to the San Joaquin County Superior Court online case management tool, Bramble was arrested in August of that year on suspicion of rape in concert with another and lewd and lascivious acts with a child younger than 14.
He first appeared in the court’s Lodi branch, and when transferred to the main courthouse in Stockton, the charge of false imprisonment was added, according to court records.
Bramble was 32 at the time he murdered Hultgren, Kalinwoski said, and was a transient when he died in 2011. He was living under a bridge along Highway 99 at the time of death, he added.
According to an obituary published by The Galt Herald in 2011, Bramble was born in St. Joseph, Mo., and his family moved to Galt in 1969.
He was married with two children, although the obituary does not indicate when and for how long. He was also a grandfather to nine.
Bramble worked at Mumbert Pipe Co., Muller Supply Co., Diamond Walnut and the Galt Arno and Lodi Memorial cemeteries for many years as a groundskeeper before developing health problems.
Schubert said Hultgren’s fingernails were the keys to solving her murder.
“Lucille Hultgren was a mother,” Schubert said.
“She was a wife, she was a 79-yearold woman who lived her life with dignity and respect, only to have it taken away by a sex offender who killed her and strangled her and assaulted her.”
The last time Hultgren’s son Henry and his wife saw her alive was Mother’s Day, Schubert said, and when Det. Mark Fewel informed him they had named a suspect, he was relieved.
“He told Det. Fewel that ‘I’m glad to know this case was solved,’” Schubert said. “’I wish the man was still alive to face the consequences. I wish my older brother was still alive to hear the news.’ I too wish this person was still alive, so we could prosecute him and put him in prison. But
sometimes justice that way.”
Schubert said what the case does do is provide answers.
Kalinowski said Bramble’s DNA is now being considered in other cold cases in the region. He said a motive had not been determined in Hultgren’s killing.
“I think all law enforcement — whether it’s our partners with the District Attorney’s Office, the Department of Justice or each local agency — never forgets about its cold cases and always works hard to make sure we can get some resolution to that,” he said. “And this is a prime example under leadership of our current district attorney.”
Former Galt Police Chief Doug Matthews led the department at the time of Hultgren’s death, and on Tuesday said he was glad the case had been closed.
“Technology has changed so much,” he said. “We did everything we could at the time. It’s one of those cases where DNA was just on the horizon.
The evidence we had, we sent in several times. We’re satisfied with this case and we can put it to bed. Now we can keep in the back of our minds the thought that there’s one less case we have to work on.”
doesn’t lead us