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DNA Names a Murder Suspect

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Sheriff’s investigators have obtained an arrest warrant for a man linked by DNA evidence to the rape and murder of a woman whose badly beaten body was found in an Irvine orange grove eight years ago.

Leonardo Pimentel Sanchez, 43, is suspected of the crimes against 18-year-old Cari Ann Parnes, an aspiring model who had just moved to Stanton from New York City when she was killed in 1992.

Authorities said the DNA match was culled from evidence taken in 1989 when Sanchez was in prison on a rape conviction. Sheriff’s investigators asked the state to study samples that had been taken from the victim’s body and checked them against a statewide database of convicted felons.

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Larry Pool, an investigator in the sheriff’s unsolved-homicides detail, said such a match is rare and possibly a first in Orange County.

Sanchez has been arrested 24 times, has used 29 aliases and 13 birth dates, and dropped out of sight in 1993, said sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino.

“He’s a very violent criminal,” he said.

On the afternoon of March 26, 1992, Parnes’ body was found in an orange grove near the intersection of Trabuco and Jeffrey roads by two orchard workers.

Badly beaten, the body had been resting in the field as long as 10 days. The body was in such a state of decomposition it took authorities more than a year to make an identification, which they finally did by matching a thumbprint through Department of Motor Vehicles records, police said.

In February, DNA evidence taken from the victim’s body when discovered was submitted to the state’s Combined DNA Indexing System to be checked against a database of convicted felons in California.

It took only a month for authorities to make a “hit,” investigators said. Sanchez’ DNA sample had been collected in 1989 when he was serving a prison term for a 1984 rape, Amormino said.

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“Today we’re positively able to match him to her,” Amormino said.

Pool said it was the first time he was aware of in Orange County that a previously unknown suspect has been identified through the state’s database.

Following a six-month investigation, the Sheriff’s Department obtained a no-bail warrant and a criminal complaint against Sanchez, alleging murder with special circumstances.

Sanchez, who has been deported from the United States eight times, is believed to be in Mexico. His last arrest was in 1993.

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