10 infamous North Coast cold cases

Over the past half-century several unsolved murders have haunted the North Coast.

Last week Shaun Michael Gallon, the Forestville felon named more than a year ago as the lone suspect in the 2004 Jenner Beach shooting deaths of Lindsay Cutshall and Jason Allen, was formally charged by Sonoma County prosecutors marking a milestone in a shocking case of violence that vexed sheriff’s detectives for years.

Modern advancements in DNA analysis have provided important clues in several cold cases throughout the country.

In Mendocino County, DNA evidence allowed sheriff’s detectives to close the books on the quarter-century old murder investigation of Georgina Pacheco, 20, who was raped and bludgeoned to death by her brother-in-law, Robert James Parks in 1988.

But several cold cases still remain unsolved. In the 1970s the murder of eight young women, hitchhiking in rural parts of Sonoma County broke the hearts of thousands and continues to torment the community to this day.

Click through our gallery above to learn more about the North Coast cold cases, solved and unsolved, that linger in our collective memories.