DNA evidence solves 1996 slaying of California waitress
DNA evidence cracked a 25-year-old cold-case slaying of a California waitress found dead in a basement bathroom, authorities said.
Priscilla Lewis, a 21-year-old from Vallejo, was discovered lifeless in September 1996 by a cook in a basement bathroom at the Four Corners restaurant in Crockett. She died from asphyxia due to drowning, according to the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office.
Detectives interviewed dozens of people in an ensuing investigation and executed several search warrants in the case, but a suspect wasn’t identified until investigators submitted new evidence to a DNA crime lab last year.
The fresh analysis showed a DNA match to Danny Lamont Hamilton, a 51-year-old inmate currently serving a 295-year sentence at a state prison near San Diego on unrelated sexual assault charges.
Hamilton was charged Wednesday in Lewis’ killing, along with four special enhancements, including murder by lying in wait, felony murder kidnapping, felony murder burglary and felony murder during an attempted rape. It’s unclear if he’s hired an attorney who could speak on his behalf.
Lewis’ cousin, Troy Kinslow, told KTVU Hamilton’s arrest gave his family much-needed answers some 25 years later.
“It’s closure for me,” Kinslow said. “It doesn’t bring her back. It will never bring her back, but for me, it’s closure.”
Kinslow said his cousin’s grisly murder “rocked” the San Francisco Bay Area town of Crockett, where she was beaten, strangled and left for dead with her face in a toilet at the restaurant where she worked.
“There’s like a black cloud over this town,” Kinslow told KRON in 2019. “It was bad.”
In an eerie prediction, Lewis’ friend, Jennifer Sylvestre, said at the time she expected DNA evidence in the case to ultimately lead to a suspect.
“I’m very hopeful,” Sylvestre told the station. “I mean, she was a great, kind person, but she was fighter. There has to be — there had to be DNA under her nails. She had to have fought back, whether she knew the person or not. There’s absolutely no way that she didn’t fight for her life.”
Authorities have not released a suspected motive. Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston, meanwhile, praised detectives for staying dedicated to solving the cold-case slaying.
“We continue to investigate unsolved homicides in an effort to provide families, like that of Priscilla Lewis, with answers and some closure and to hold suspects accountable,” Livingston said.