With new evidence and technology, Cottonwood police detectives have reopened the 1997 Marisol Gonzalez murder case.
“What we’ve done is have the Department of Public Safety crime lab come and look at all the evidence. There’s new technology that wasn’t available then,” Cottonwood Detective Sgt. Tod Moore said.
He said the DPS officers found some trace evidence that wasn’t located before or couldn’t be tested at the time.
By Lu Stitt
Larson Newspapers
With new evidence and technology, Cottonwood police detectives have reopened the 1997 Marisol Gonzalez murder case.
“What we’ve done is have the Department of Public Safety crime lab come and look at all the evidence. There’s new technology that wasn’t available then,” Cottonwood Detective Sgt. Tod Moore said.
He said the DPS officers found some trace evidence that wasn’t located before or couldn’t be tested at the time.
“DNA is what we’re looking for, to see if there are any matches. With technology now, we hope to get some evidence and leads that we couldn’t get 11 years ago,” Moore said.
Back then, to test for DNA, a sample had to be about the size of a dime. Today they can test as small as a pinpoint, he said.
In 1997, DNA tested on Gonzalez’s unborn baby matched DNA of the father, Cecilio Cruz. Gonzalez and Cruz broke up several months before the body of Gonzalez, 17, was discovered March 25, 1997, just before 7 a.m., in an alley between South 13th and 14th streets off East Birch. The alley had been a regular meeting place, according to the investigation. Gonzalez was pregnant at the time. The baby, a boy the family named Andrew, was due March 17.
“During the original investigation they did a good job of gathering evidence. We already have the DNA on Marisol [Gonzalez] and Andrew,” Moore said.
Since the baby was full term, detectives treated the case as a double homicide.
A cross bearing the names Marisol and Andrew still marks the site where she was found shot in the face only a short distance from her home.
For several years, family and friends conducted a pilgrimage on the anniversary of her death with a march from her home to the grave site she shares with Andrew at the Cottonwood Cemetery.
Gonzalez was a typical teenager. She attended classes at Mingus Union High School. She loved poetry, particularly Chicano love poems, listening to “oldies” and planting flowers with her mother, Petra, according to her sister Johanora Gonzalez.
Gonzalez’s goal after high school was to attend classes at Yavapai College. She wanted to be a preschool teacher.
Going through old notes, detectives found new names they may not have discovered during the original investigation.
“We’re having some of the same challenges as before. People probably know something, but they’re not talking for whatever reason. You don’t kill somebody without someone knowing you did it,” Moore said.
The detectives are going through all the viable options and conducting a process of elimination to kick out those that do not make sense.
During this most recent investigation detectives recontacted some of the old leads, such as Kylee Oso, a one-time Cottonwood resident thought to have knowledge of the homicide.
In an attempt to clear her name, Oso agreed to a polygraph test. The test revealed Oso appeared to have no knowledge or involvement in the murder of Gonzalez and her son, Moore said.
Once word got out that the case was being reopened, Gonzalez’s brother Angel visited with Moore and thanked him and the department for not letting the case go.
“This isn’t going away. There’s no statute of limitation on murder. It’s staying open until it’s solved. We’d like to find the truth of what happened,” he said.
The family deserves to know, and the community deserves to know, according to Moore.
“This was devastating, not only to her family, but to the whole community,” he said.
Detectives reopening the case hope by getting this information out to the public, it will stir people’s memories and they will call.
People with information can call Det. Moore at the Cottonwood Police Department at 634-4246 or Silent Witness at (800) 932-3232. They are still offering a reward.
Lu Stitt can be reached at
634-8551 or e-mail
lu@larsonnewspapers.com
