A man who murdered an 18-year-old woman in Utah four decades ago has finally been identified, authorities said Thursday.
Christine Gallegos was found dead on May 16, 1985, along Jefferson Street in Salt Lake City, the Salt Lake City Police Department said. She had been beaten, stabbed, sexually assaulted and shot to death near an area known then as Dirk’s Field.
Detectives were unable to find any leads despite years of investigative efforts and multiple rounds of forensic testing. The case went cold and remained so until 2023, when advances in DNA and genealogical testing connected the case to a man named Ricky Lee Stallworth.
Stallworth was a 27-year-old airman stationed at Hill Air Force Base at the time of the Gallegos’ murder, according to police. He died of natural causes in July 2023.
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“We missed being able to talk to him and interview him just by a matter of months,” Detective Cordon Parks said at a news conference on Thursday. “I wish we could have got to him before he died.”
Stallworth was first named a likely suspect after the case was reexamined in 2023, with efforts focusing on identifying an unknown male DNA profile that had been previously entered into the Combined DNA Index System, a database of DNA profiles from convicted offenders, unsolved crime scene evidence and missing persons.
Othram Labs in The Woodlands, Texas, came up with the likely match after detectives sent evidence to the lab in late 2023 for advanced DNA analysis.
One of Stallworth’s family members then provided detectives with a voluntary DNA sample, which police said confirmed Stallworth as a match.
Parks said an investigation into Stallworth revealed him to be “sort of a State Street stalker.”
“Even though he was married, he would tell his spouses that he was going out for the night,” Parks said. “He’d leave late in the night, and he wouldn’t come back until early, early the next morning.”
Detectives said a motive remains unclear and any potential relationship between Gallegos and Stallworth remains unanswered. Investigators have said it was “very obvious” that Gallegos struggled with the suspect before she was shot and stabbed.
“She left a blood trail up to the gutter of Jefferson Street,” Parks said.
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Gallegos’ mother, Leah, thanked investigators for “never giving up” on solving the case.
“You never quit thinking about it. You never quit crying about it,” Leah Gallegos said when reporters asked about her memories of her daughter.
“I wonder about the kids that she would have…” she added. “She was outgoing, she was sweet … they took so much away when they took her away.”
Utah State Bureau of Investigation Agent Steve O’Camb said he hoped that identifying the killer would bring the family closure.
“Handcuffs, however, do not equal healing,” O’Camb said. “The resolution of Christine’s case is a prime example. We weren’t able to arrest a suspect, but hopefully we achieved some measure of justice for her and the family and friends that loved her.”
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