Sacramento law enforcement officials are announcing they have solved a 52-year old cold case, the oldest cold case in Sacramento County. The Sacramento County District Attorney's office and the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department announced that through DNA testing from evidence from the original crime scene in 1970, they are able to announce the identity of the murderer that brutally killed Nancy Bennallack. They confirmed then 27-year-old Richard John Davis killed Nancy Bennallack after breaking into her apartment. The new evidence also confirmed that Davis lived at the same apartment complex as Bennallack. Investigators believe he was able to see into her apartment from across the pool, which motivated him to attack her. Davis taped his fingers to block his fingerprints and climbed her balcony and broke in overnight. Davis died in November of 1997 due to alcoholism, according to the investigation.
28-year-old Nancy Bennallack was found stabbed to death, with her head almost fully decapitated, in her bedroom of her apartment off Arden Way on October 25th, 1970. She has several defensive wounds, showing she tried to fight back against her attacker. Blood from the suspect was gathered at the scene. In November of 2019, Sacramento County Sheriff's cold case investigators tested that evidence using genealogy that helped solve 11 other cases, 17 murders, and 59 rapes. That same technology is also responsible for capturing Golden State Killer Joseph James Deangelo in 2018.