VISTA, Calif.—A man arrested last year for the 1994 stabbing death of an Oceanside woman was sentenced this week to 12 years in state prison.
Jesus “Jesse” Velazquez Ayala, 59, pleaded guilty earlier this month to a voluntary manslaughter count stemming from 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.
