VISTA, Calif.—A man arrested last year for the 1994 stabbing death of an Oceanside woman pleaded guilty this week to a voluntary manslaughter count.
Jesus “Jesse” Velazquez Ayala, 59, is slated to be sentenced later this month to 12 years in state prison for the killing of 54-year-old Dolores Rabaya.
The victim was found inside her Edgehill Lane home on Jan. 1, 1994 with more than two dozen stab wounds.
The previous evening, Ayala—at the time a 30-year-old Carlsbad resident—and Rabaya had been seen together celebrating New Year’s Eve at a South Coast Highway bar, and they left the establishment together, according to police.
“At the time of the murder, an extensive investigation was conducted by ... homicide detectives and [Ayala] was identified [as the suspected killer], but charges could not be filed due to a lack of physical evidence,” Oceanside Police Department spokeswoman Jennifer Atenza said in a news release issued last year.
After the investigation went cold, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office reopened the case in 2015, and forensic evidence recovered at the crime scene was resubmitted for examination.
Based on the new findings, an arrest warrant was issued for Ayala in 2016. He was arrested in Mexico in February of last year, then extradited to San Diego County. On Monday, Ayala pleaded guilty to the manslaughter count, plus an allegation of using a knife in Rabaya’s killing.
