The victim was found in the back seat of her Volkswagen Beetle in the parking lot of an apartment complex she didn’t live in, a few minutes away from a bar where her friends had last seen her alive on the night of Jan. 31, 1977.
She had been stuffed in the back of the Beetle, wedged tightly in the small crevice of the back seat. Detectives determined she had been strangled with the sleeve of her own shirt and had been sexually assaulted. The killer tried to light her car on fire, but it didn’t ignite.
For 48 years, since 24-year-old Jeanette Ralston, a San Mateo resident, was found dead, her case lay cold, save for a sketch of an unknown man her friends saw her leave the bar with the night before she was found. Her friend told detectives that upon leaving, Ralston said she would be “back in 10 minutes,” but she never came back…