Guilty plea is entered in slaying from 1989
A man who was identified late last year as a suspect in a 1989 cold-case slaying pleaded guilty and was sentenced Wednesday in the killing of 67-year-old Helen Davidson of Hesperia.
Darrin Keith Brown, 43, was groundskeeper and handyman for Davidson, and she had allowed him to move into a spare bedroom a week before her death.
Brown was arrested in Davidson’s vehicle and questioned in May 1989, but there was insufficient evidence to link him to the crime.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department reopened the case and linked Brown’s DNA to evidence found at the scene. He was extradited in April from Pennsylvania, where he was in a state prison. Sheriff’s officials said Brown was sentenced to 25 years to life.
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