Suspect Arrested In Cold Case Murder Of LA Teen

LOS ANGELES, CA — A Texas man who allegedly killed a 17-year-old Boyle Heights girl in 1996 was in custody Wednesday after DNA evidence connected him to the crime, authorities said.

Authorities cracked the case in December after Jose Luis Garcia, 42, was arrested in the San Fernando Valley on suspicion of domestic violence. He was required to provide a DNA sample. It wasn't long before he proved to be a match in the cold case murder of Gladys Arellano, whose partially clothed body was discovered at the bottom of a ravine in the Topanga Canyon area of Malibu on Jan. 30, 1996, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Jose Luis Garcia, 42, originally from Fontana, was arrested in September on suspicion of murder.

At a Wednesday news conference attended by Sheriff Alex Villanueva, Homicide Bureau Lt. Hugo Reynaga explained that an autopsy found that Arellano had been sexually assaulted, beaten, and strangled to death.

"At the time of the initial murder investigation, serology evidence was collected from Gladys's body and subsequently a DNA profile was uploaded to state and federal DNA databases an as unknown offender," he said. "Although an extensive investigation was conducted, no match was identified through the DNA database and the case remained unsolved."

Garcia was arrested in November 2019 by LAPD Mission Division officers on suspicion of domestic assault, and a DNA sample was collected and loaded into the California DNA database.

In December, detectives were alerted to a DNA match to the 1996 killing, and contacted Garcia at his Fontana residence in February 2020. After questioning Garcia, detectives obtained a warrant to obtain a DNA sample from him, which they submitted to the LASD crime lab. When serologists determined that it matched the DNA from 1996, they obtained an arrest warrant.

According to Reynaga, Garcia relocated to Dallas after being questioned by detectives. Detectives alerted the U.S. Marshals Service task force in Dallas, who arrested Garcia on Sept. 29.

Garcia was arrested by a U.S. Marshals Service task force in Dallas on Sept. 29th of this year. He was extradited to California on Oct. 14 and booked in a jail on murder charges, and was arraigned in Van Nuys on Monday on a charge of murder, where he remains in custody with a $1 million-bail.

At the Wednesday news conference, Arellano's niece and goddaughter Samantha Moreno thanked detectives for solving the almost 25-year-old cold case.

"Thank you for not giving up on our Gladys, who was a loving daughter, sister, aunt, and godmother," she said. "She had such big dreams for her life, and my grandparents would have been so proud of her. It was extremely painful for all of us to lose her and live through 24-and-a-half years of not knowing who killed her....we recognize that this will not bring Gladys back, but we are relieved to know that there will be justice for Gladys Arellano, who would've celebrated her 42nd birthday on Sat., Oct. 24."

According to Reynaga, around 15,000 cold cases remain in the system.