1991 San Jose murder suspect Gerardo Aguilar found: He was killed during a shootout with FBI agents 17 years ago.
Following an investigator’s hunch, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Unit tracked down the suspect in a 33-year-old murder who was living under another name in Ohio.
The suspect, however, is dead. Gerardo Aguilar, also known as Gerardo Mulato, was killed in 2007 during a shootout with the FBI in Ohio, which had been investigating him for drug trafficking. Aguilar was wanted for the 1991 gang murder of a 14-year-old.
“It’s never too late to identify a killer,” District Attorney Jeff Rosen said. “People may forget. But victims’ families and my Office do not.”
The DA’s Office has solved 20 homicides and 15 sexual assault cold cases since 2018. The Cold Case Unit, established by District Attorney Rosen in 2011, also works to locate and apprehend known suspects charged with decades-old homicides but are still at large.
On September 28, 1991,15-year-old Gerardo Aguilar shot and killed 14-year-old Raymond Ojeda during a gang-related confrontation in the Foxdale Loop area of San Jose. A juvenile arrest warrant was issued for Aguilar, but local authorities were not able to locate him. The suspect disappeared.
Earlier this year, the DA’s Cold Case Unit identified a man living in Ohio under the name Gerardo Mulato as possibly being Gerardo Aguilar. Investigator John Cary did a background search and found the suspect’s sister’s last name was Mulato, so he did a search for Gerardo Mulato. He found a person who looked a lot like the suspect in Forest Park, Ohio, near Cincinnati. DNA analysis confirmed they were the same person. Aguilar had been living in Ohio under the name Mulato for several years, having been arrested in 2004 for assault with a baseball bat in Springfield.
In 2007, Mulato saw the FBI installing a tracking device on his car. Apparently believing they were car thieves, Mulato pulled a gun and an agent shot him.
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