A 70-year-old Nevada man has been charged in the 1982 killing of a 5-year-old girl who disappeared while walking to her kindergarten class in California after detectives solved the case using DNA evidence, authorities said.
Robert John Lanoue, of Reno, Nevada, was charged last week in the killing of Anne Pham and was due in court Monday in Washoe County for a hearing about his extradition to Monterey County in California.
Pham disappeared while walking to her kindergarten class at Highland Elementary School in Seaside, California, on Jan. 21, 1982. Her body was found two days later in the former Fort Ord, an Army post on Monterey Bay.
The child had been kidnapped, sexually assaulted and strangled, California authorities said.
“It’s a very strong case. DNA has a large part, genealogy has a large part and circumstantial evidence, in this case, is extremely powerful,” Seaside Police Chief Nick Borges told KION 46. “The suspect lived about a block and a half away from Anne Pham.”
Lanoue, who is a registered sex offender in Nevada, was 29 years old at the time of the girl’s killing and lived near her home in Seaside, said Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni.
“The guy is a complete monster,” Borges told People magazine.
The case was reopened in 2020 when investigators with the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Task Force worked with the Seaside Police Department to submit evidence from the case for DNA testing after receiving a grant to reopen cold cases.
“A new type of DNA testing not previously available to earlier investigators identified Lanoue as the suspect in Pham’s murder,” the district attorney’s office said in a press release.
Thank you Mayor Oglesby and Seaside City Council for your continued support in helping Seaside be a safer community! https://t.co/y4etOnEOBT
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Lanoue was charged with one count of first-degree murder, with special circumstance allegations that he murdered Pham while committing kidnapping and a lewd act on a child under the age of 14, said Pacioni.
It was not immediately known if Lanoue has an attorney who can speak on his behalf.
On July 6, California investigators obtained a warrant for Lanoue’s arrest, Pacioni said. Lanoue was already in the Washoe County jail where he was booked on June 8 for a parole violation, records showed.
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