A DNA match has helped authorities decide {that a} former Martinez man sexually assaulted and strangled Berkeley resident Maria Weidhofer in Tilden Regional Park in 1990.
Officers introduced Wednesday they solved the 34-year-old chilly case homicide by matching the killer’s DNA with that of Jon Lipari, who shot and killed himself in November at his Oregon dwelling.
Lipari lived in Martinez with household when he sexually assaulted and strangled Weidhofer on Nov. 15, 1990, on a path close to Inspiration Level.
The day after the homicide, police noticed her 1982 blue Toyota truck with a white camper shell parked at Inspiration Level. Her physique was discovered close to a redwood grove a few mile northwest of Inspiration Level.
Police additionally mentioned Lipari didn’t have a historical past of violent crime so far as they knew and there have been no different violent incidents within the space across the time of Weidhofer’s homicide.
“Thirty-five years ago, our family was irreparably harmed by the loss of Maria,” mentioned park district detective Christopher Rudy, studying a press release from Weidhofer’s household. “In ensuing years, our parents … struggled mightily with psychological repercussions, including the frustration of knowing the perpetrator was likely still free. Maria, the family, and the world, have been carelessly cheated and deprived of her future.’’
Cyclists ride near the entrance to the Nimitz Way trail at Inspiration Point in Tilden Regional Park in an undated Google Street View image. Maria Weidhofer often jogged on the trail prior to her murder in 1990, according to authorities. (Google image)
The family said they were grateful investigators didn’t give up.
“We shall remember Maria as a gentle soul pursuing her dreams as an artist and baker in the Bay Area community she loved. Our wish is that she will be remembered for the person she was and not for what happened to her.”
In 1997, organic proof discovered on Weidhofer was despatched to a Contra Costa County crime lab for DNA evaluation. No matches have been discovered on the time.
Rudy mentioned in 2020, park district police started working with the FBI and its superior DNA strategies. “Through this investigation, Jon Lipari was determined to be a potential suspect and later became our primary suspect in 2024,” Rudy mentioned. “Through this investigation, we determined that the party was living in Gold Beach, Oregon.”
“We shall remember Maria as a gentle soul pursuing her dreams as an artist and baker in the Bay Area community she loved. Our wish is that she will be remembered for the person she was and not for what happened to her.”
Household assertion
Rudy mentioned there was no proof that Lipari knew he was a suspect when he killed himself.
Weidhofer was 32 and a local of Claremont in Los Angeles County. She graduated from College of California at Davis with honors in studio artwork and labored for a macrobiotic bakery in Emeryville.
She commonly jogged on the Nimitz Manner path, adjoining to the Inspiration Manner car parking zone. Investigators mentioned on the time the suspect had lain in wait on a bench close to the path’s entrance.
