DNA Ties Man to 1993 Port Hueneme Slaying

Using decade-old DNA evidence, Port Hueneme police arrested a local man Tuesday in the rape and slaying of an 87-year-old deaf and mute woman, who was stabbed to death in her apartment at a senior citizens complex.

Ricardo Villa, 28, was arrested at a local auto shop in the June 27, 1993, slaying of Beatrice Bellis, said Police Cmdr. Jerry Beck. The identification of Villa was made after investigators matched a DNA sample taken from the suspect with one found at the scene, Beck said.

He declined to elaborate on when Villa submitted to a DNA test or how he was singled out by investigators, saying only, “Anyone who had a connection to the apartment complex ... we asked for voluntary DNA samples.” And with Villa, he said, “we got a hit.”

Beck said he did not know if the suspect had known the victim. “We know the who,” he said. “We don’t know the why.”

Bellis’ slaying was one of three involving single women that rocked Port Hueneme during the summer of 1993. The arrests of suspects in the other two cases were also made possible through advancements in DNA technology, authorities said.

Bellis, who was left deaf and mute by a childhood case of scarlet fever, had lived at the Mar Vista senior center on East Scott Street since 1989. She was stabbed to death June 27, 1993, in her one-bedroom apartment. Her body, covered with a blanket, was later found by her brother. Bellis’ relatives have been notified of the arrest, Beck said. “It gives family members closure,” he said. “Now three families from 1993 have closure.”

The first slaying that summer was on June 1, when Norma Rodriguez, 32, was strangled in her living room while her 4-year-old son was in the apartment.

Last August, authorities arrested 39-year-old Ventura resident Warren Mackey, who worked with Rodriguez at an Oxnard Kmart, after confronting him with DNA evidence. Mackey, who is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail, has been bound over for trial and is set to be arraigned Thursday.

The other slaying occurred Aug. 5. Firefighters found Cynthia Burger, 44, dead inside her burning condominium on Outlook Cove. Authorities initially thought she had died from smoke inhalation, but an autopsy determined that she had been raped and strangled.

Six years after the slaying, a tipster led authorities to state inmate Michael Schultz, whose DNA matched semen at the scene.

Schultz, then 33, was convicted of rape and murder and sentenced to death.

On Tuesday, Beck praised police detectives and investigators with the Ventura County district attorney’s office, who worked on the Bellis case over the past 10 years.

Villa is scheduled to be arraigned today.