Santa Clara County District Attorney Press Release Re: Willie Eugene Sims Arrested for Alleged 1997 Murder of Jeanette Ralston
DA Cold Case Unit charges Ohio man in 1977 murder
May 6, 2025
For release on May 6, 2025
CONTACT:
Rob Baker
Deputy District Attorney
Cold Case Unit
(650) 324-6416
[email protected]
DA Cold Case Unit charges Ohio man in 1977 murder
Using DNA and fingerprints on a pack of Eve cigarettes, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office has charged a 69-year-old Ohio man with the murder of a woman he met in a San Jose bar almost half a century ago.
Willie Eugene Sims is accused of strangling Jeanette Ralston to death with a long-sleeve shirt on February 1, 1977. Friends of Ralston said they last saw her alive when she left the Lion’s Den Bar at 1500 Almaden Road in San Jose with an unknown man just before midnight on January 31, 1977.
The defendant is scheduled to be arraigned today at 12:00 p.m. PST before Judge Harold Specht in the Ashtabula County Courthouse, Eastern Division in Jefferson, Ohio, where he is awaiting extradition to California. If convicted, Sims faces 25-years-to-life in prison.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen said: “Every day, forensic science grows better, and every day criminals are closer to being caught. Cases may grow old and be forgotten by the public. We don’t forget and we don’t give up.”
The case was solved due to collaboration between the SJPD Homicide Unit and the DA’s Cold Case Unit. The Cold Case Unit was established in 2011. Since then, the DA’s Office has solved over 30 cold case murders from as early as 1969.
On February 1, 1977, Ralston, then 24-years-old and living in San Mateo, was found dead, wedged tightly in the back seat of her Volkswagen Beetle in the carport area of an apartment complex near the bar. The medical examiner concluded the cause of death was strangulation from a long-sleeve dress shirt tied around her neck. The autopsy also showed evidence of sexual assault. The killer tried to light her car on fire, but it failed to burn.
No suspects were identified at the time, and the case went cold until a fingerprint found on one of Ralston’s cigarette packs was found to match Sims in August 2024. Sims – an army private assigned to Fort Ord at the time – was convicted in 1978 for an assault to commit murder in Monterey County. Sims moved out of state before his DNA could be entered into CODIS, the state’s DNA database. Earlier this year, DA’s Bureau of Investigation and San Jose Police Department investigators traveled to Ohio to collect a DNA sample from Sims with the assistance of Ashtabula County authorities. Weeks ago, the DA’s Crime Lab found DNA consistent with Sims on Ralston’s fingernails and the shirt used to strangle her.
If anyone has any additional information about this case, please call (408) 792-2466 or email [email protected].
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