DNA links inmate to 1980 homicide of Silver Lake woman, LAPD says
More than three decades after a woman was sexually assaulted, beaten and stabbed to death in a Silver Lake apartment, Los Angeles police cold case detectives Friday said they have arrested the man responsible.
Harold Anthony Parkinson was taken into custody Wednesday at Chuckawalla Valley State Prison in Blythe, where he already was serving a life sentence for murdering his roommate seven months after the August 1980 slaying of the young woman, said Robbery Homicide Det. Michael Pelletier.
According to state death records, the victim was 36-year-old Stephanie Sommers. On the weekend she was killed, 34 other homicides were recorded across Los Angeles, making it the deadliest weekend in 1980.
Homicides that year jumped 30%, soaring past 1,000 killings.
Sommer’s death in the 3500 block of Marathon Street was attributed to blunt force trauma and multiple stab wounds. The motive for the killing was unknown, but she had been sexually assaulted.
Pelletier and veteran cold case Det. Richard Bengtson matched DNA evidence from the crime scene to Parkinson’s profile on a state database. An arrest warrant was then issued for Parkinson, which was served while he was still in the custody of the California Department of Corrections.
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