(BCN) –A Nevada man pleaded responsible to the kidnapping and homicide of a Seaside youngster in 1982 and can serve life in jail, the Monterey County District Lawyer’s Workplace introduced Thursday.
Robert Lanoue, 72, pleaded responsible to first-degree homicide, kidnapping, committing a forcible lewd act on a toddler underneath 14, and different sexual assault crimes for the Jan. 21, 1982 abduction and homicide of 5-year-old Anne Pham.
Lanoue will obtain a sentence of 25 years to life in jail plus 31 extra years, prosecutors mentioned.
Pham disappeared after leaving for college in Seaside, in line with prosecutors.
Pham’s stays had been discovered on Jan. 23, 1982 on the website of the previous Fort Ord. She had been strangled to dying, prosecutors mentioned.
The case sat chilly for 40 years, however in 2020 a county activity pressure with the District Lawyer’s Workplace and Seaside police reopened the case and submitted proof for DNA evaluation. A bit of pubic hair discovered on Pham was sufficient to create a DNA profile that might be matched to genealogical databases and Lanoue’s title got here up as a attainable suspect.
On the time of the crime, Lanoue was 29 and within the U.S. Military, stationed at Fort Ord. He additionally lived a tenth of a mile away from the Pham household and one in every of his kids went to high school with Anne, prosecutors mentioned.
In keeping with the District Lawyer’s Workplace, Lanoue, who was residing in Reno, was interviewed in 2022 and admitted to choosing Pham up on her approach to faculty, however mentioned he had no reminiscence of killing her.
“He acknowledged that he may have blocked it out of his memory to protect himself,” mentioned prosecutors. “He admitted that he had a history of sexually assaulting young girls.”
