A Gardena man has been arrested in the 1994 stabbing death of a woman in Desert Hot Springs, officials announced Tuesday.
The victim, Cheri Huss, was found dead inside her Desert Hot Springs apartment on Parma Drive nearly 28 years ago.
She had been stabbed multiple times and bitten by her killer.
The woman had tried to fight off her attacker, helping to leave behind some of his blood at the crime scene, along with saliva from the bite marks he left on the victim, the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office.
After years of investigation and attempts to find a match on the suspect’s DNA profile, Cheri’s case went cold — until last month.
In February, a Riverside County cold case team used forensic genetic genealogy and were able to name a person of interest in the crime: 48-year-old Sharron Eugene Gadlin.
In 1994, Gadlin had lived in Thousand Palms — about 12 miles from the scene of the killing, the District Attorney’s Office said.
Cold case investigators got a saliva sample from Gadlin on Feb. 14, and four days later, they had a DNA match with the person suspected of killing Huss.
Gadlin was arrested March 4 after being pulled over at 135th and Western Avenue in Gardena. He was booked at the Robert Presley Detention Center in lieu of $1 million bail.
He was charged with Huss’ killing and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday at the Hall of Justice in Riverside.
“I hope Cheri and her family will finally get the justice they deserve and have waited so long for,” Riverside County District Attorney Mike Hestrin said. “Our cold case team of investigators will continue to use cutting edge technology to solve old murder cases across Riverside County. Our prosecutors will continue to vigorously prosecute these murderers until we get justice for their victims.”
