A 61-year-old woman has been arrested for the 1993 cold case murder of a California store owner who was shot dead in what investigators believe was a daylight robbery gone wrong.
Rayna Hoffman-Ramos was taken into custody in Oklahoma last week and charged with the first-degree murder of Shu Ming Tang.
Mr Ming Tang, a Taiwanese immigrant who ran the Devonshire Little Store in San Carlos, was fatally shot while working in his shop back on 26 April 1983.
Police were called to reports of a shooting at the store at around 1pm that afternoon to find Mr Ming Tang suffering from a single gunshot wound to the chest.
He was rushed to hospital but died from his injuries.
His murder sent shockwaves around the San Carlos community where the store owner was a well-known figure.
At the time, investigators learned that a woman had been seen leaving the scene soon after the shooting and they believed Mr Ming Tang was the victim of a robbery gone wrong.
But the case went cold and remained unsolved for the next 29 years.
The cold case was later reopened in 2018 and, thanks to new “forensic technology”, officials announced on Thursday that an arrest had finally been made in the case.
San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office Lt Jacob Trickett said at a press conference that developments in the investigation had led police to a “person of interest” connected to two locations in Sacramento, California, and Washington County, Oklahoma.
Detectives then carried out simultaneous operations at the two addresses on 16 March before arresting Ms Hoffman-Ramos in Oklahoma.
The 61-year-old, who investigators said has a criminal record, is believed to have acted alone.
She was a resident in San Mateo at the time of the fatal shooting but has been living in Oklahoma in recent years.
San Carlos Mayor Sara McDowell said at Thursday press conference’s that Mr Ming Tang had moved from Taiwan to the US to open the shop and build a better life for his family.
“Mr Tang was a husband, a father and a friend who came to the United States to provide a better life for his family,” she said.
“His death shook the community of San Carlos and has remained a topic of discussion over the years.”
San Mateo County Sheriff Carlos Bolanos said that he hopes Mr Ming Tang’s family “will finally get the justice and closure that you deserve”.
Ms Hoffman-Ramos is currently being held in jail in Washington County while she awaits extradition to California on the murder charge.
