For nearly 40 years, the murder of 15-year-old Karen Stitt sat unsolved, leaving her family with grief, suspicion, and unanswered questions that stretched from 1982 into the age of forensic genealogy.
In a true crime documentary from EWU Crime Storytime, the channel’s host explained how California detectives eventually traveled to Hawaii to arrest Gary Gene Ramirez, an elderly father and Air Force veteran, after DNA evidence tied him to Karen’s killing decades after her body was found in Sunnyvale, California.
The arrest footage shows Ramirez outside with family nearby as detectives calmly tell him they have a warrant for his arrest.
“What happened?” Ramirez asks as officers place him in handcuffs. “What did I do? I don’t know what I did.”
According to EWU Crime Storytime, the answer was buried in a case that began with a father’s missing-person call in September 1982 and ended with a murder conviction more than four decades later.
A Father’s Missing Daughter
EWU Crime Storytime said the case began on September 3, 1982, when Karen’s father, Robert, called police after last seeing his daughter the night before.
“My daughter is missing,” Robert told Detective Stevenson in an old recording featured in the documentary. “Something happened to my daughter.”
Soon after, detectives with the Sunnyvale Police Department learned that a young girl had been found dead near an intersection, in bushes beside a cinder block wall.
A detective initially avoided giving Robert details over the phone and asked him to come in person. When Robert pressed for answers, another detective told him they had found a deceased girl in Sunnyvale.
The detective asked about clothing, and Robert described blue jeans and a blue-and-white top. The details matched.
The victim was later identified as Karen Stitt, a Palo Alto High School student who had taken a bus to Sunnyvale to visit her boyfriend, David.
According to the host, court records said Karen had been sexually assaulted and stabbed 59 times.
The details are hard to read even now. It was not only a murder; it was a violent attack on a teenager who had been trying to get home.
The Boyfriend Falls Under Suspicion
Investigators soon focused heavily on Karen’s boyfriend, David, who was 17 at the time.
EWU Crime Storytime reported that Karen had met David at a convenience store between 8 and 9 p.m. They grabbed drinks, walked near a miniature golf course, and later David said he left her while she walked toward the bus stop.
David told investigators he felt bad leaving Karen alone, but he did not want to get in trouble with his parents for being home late.
Detectives questioned David and asked whether they could search his room and look at the clothes he had worn that night.
“It’s important for us to know because she was murdered last night,” an investigator told him in the recording.
For years, suspicion stayed close to David. Karen’s father Robert said decades later that he still had a “gut feeling” about him, partly because David leaving Karen alone at the bus stop did not make sense to him.
The documentary also showed detectives questioning David again in 2001, pressing him about changes in his story and a polygraph that showed signs of deception.
At one point, an investigator told David that DNA was better than fingerprints and said he truly believed David had killed Karen.
But despite the suspicion, there was not enough evidence to arrest him.
Eventually, DNA evidence cleared David as the source of the unknown male DNA profile developed from blood evidence at the crime scene.
That is one of the painful lessons in cold cases. Early suspicion can dominate a case for years, even when the real answer is waiting somewhere else.
DNA Points To A New Name
EWU Crime Storytime said a major break came after advances in DNA technology and genetic genealogy.
For years, detectives had collected DNA from relatives of men connected to Karen or suspected in the case, but those comparisons did not solve it.
Then a tip pointed investigators toward four brothers with the last name Ramirez.
DNA from the crime scene was compared to DNA from a Ramirez relative, and the investigation eventually led to Gary Gene Ramirez, a 75-year-old father and veteran living in Hawaii.
The host said Ramirez had lived in California in the 1980s and had ties to the Bay Area, including Palo Alto, where Karen lived.
On August 2, 2022, detectives arrived in Hawaii to arrest him.
The footage shows Ramirez appearing confused as detectives ask for identification and explain that the paperwork they have is a warrant.
“It’s something that’s really old,” a detective tells him. “We will be happy to talk to you about it and share more information.”
Ramirez keeps asking what he did while family members nearby react in shock.
One woman asks if there is any way he does not have to go.
“No,” a detective answers. “He is under arrest right now for a warrant.”
“You’re Under Arrest For Murder”
According to EWU Crime Storytime, Ramirez was later told he was being arrested for murder and taken to a police station, where detectives also had a warrant to collect his DNA.
The channel said the interrogation footage was analyzed by a retired detective who is also a licensed polygraph examiner and a former hostage negotiation commander and instructor.
In the interview room, a detective told Ramirez he was being honest with him from the beginning and was not going to pretend the situation was unclear.
The detective then read Ramirez his rights.
After Ramirez was Mirandized, detectives asked him about his ties to California, including Santa Clara and Sunnyvale.
Ramirez initially said he had never been to Sunnyvale, though he later said he may have driven through. He also said he had visited a family member in Palo Alto in the 1980s.
The detective then told Ramirez that the test done that day was meant to confirm a result investigators already knew.
“I wouldn’t be here and put you all through this if I wasn’t already sure of where we’re at,” the detective said.
Ramirez denied killing anyone.
“Have you ever killed a person, Gary?” the detective asked.
“No,” Ramirez answered.
The Detective Reveals The Evidence
The detective told Ramirez that he had physical evidence placing him at a murder scene in Sunnyvale and nobody else.
Ramirez asked why he was being taken to California if he was not guilty.
The detective explained that he knew more than he was sharing, then showed Ramirez an old image of the area from 1982.
When the detective showed him a photo of Karen, Ramirez said he did not recognize her.
“That’s a 15-year-old girl, Gary,” the detective said.
EWU Crime Storytime’s analyst noted that Ramirez’s response to Karen’s photo was a weak denial, because he did not immediately and strongly say he had not killed her.
The detective then became more direct.
“Is there any reason you can think of that I would have blood evidence at the scene of that woman’s death?” he asked. “That little girl’s death. That blood belongs to you.”
Ramirez replied, “I don’t know how that happened.”
When the detective asked if he was curious how Karen was killed, Ramirez eventually asked how.
“You stabbed her 60 times, Gary,” the detective said.
“Oh my God,” Ramirez answered. “No. I didn’t do anything like that.”
The exchange is chilling because the detective is not working with a hunch anymore. He is confronting Ramirez with the kind of evidence that changed cold cases across the country once forensic genealogy entered police work.
A Request For A Lawyer Ends The Interview
The detective urged Ramirez to think about closure, saying the case was not going away.
“There’s no way that for the last 40 years of dealing with this in your heart, you haven’t felt bad,” the detective said.
Ramirez refused to admit anything.
“I’m not going to lift anything I didn’t do,” he said.
When the detective offered to go check on the DNA results, Ramirez told him to do it. Moments later, Ramirez said he did not want to say anything more and asked for a lawyer.
“I’d like to have a lawyer if it’s okay with you guys,” Ramirez said.
After that, the interrogation ended.
EWU Crime Storytime later showed Ramirez being booked into the Maui County Jail. When asked if he needed anything, Ramirez answered, “Love. Freedom.”
The detective replied that he could not give him love, but he could show him respect.
The host noted that the detective missed a chance to calmly confront Ramirez with the fact that Karen also wanted love and freedom, and those had been taken from her 40 years earlier.
That is a sharp observation, because cold cases are not only about solving a puzzle. They are about the stolen life at the center of it, and the people who waited decades for someone to answer for it.
A Conviction After Four Decades
According to EWU Crime Storytime, Ramirez was convicted of Karen’s first-degree murder on February 24, 2025, after pleading no contest.
He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison and will be eligible for parole in 2038, when he will be 90 years old.
By the time the case was solved, the host said, members of Karen’s immediate family had died without seeing her killer brought to justice.
That is one of the hardest parts of the story. Science eventually caught up to the evidence, but time had already taken away people who spent their lives waiting for answers.
Karen was 15 when she was murdered. Her case sat cold for nearly 40 years. Her boyfriend lived under suspicion for years before DNA cleared him. Her father heard the first awful news from detectives in 1982 and never got the full justice he wanted in his lifetime.
Ramirez’s arrest footage shows a family stunned as an old man asks what he did.
The answer, according to prosecutors and the court outcome described by EWU Crime Storytime, was not something new. It was something investigators say had been waiting in the evidence since 1982.
A secret can stay buried for decades, but in Karen Stitt’s case, the blood evidence never forgot.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, John developed a love for the great outdoors early on. With years of experience as a wilderness guide, he’s navigated rugged terrains and unpredictable weather patterns. John is also an avid hunter and fisherman who believes in sustainable living. His focus on practical survival skills, from building shelters to purifying water, reflects his passion for preparedness. When he’s not out in the wild, you can find him sharing his knowledge through writing, hoping to inspire others to embrace self-reliance.
