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Detectives Solve 1974 Murder Of Disabled Pomona Woman

POMONA (AP) — The Los Angeles Sheriff's Department says it has cracked the decades-old homicide of a Pomona woman, though the suspect in the case died in 2003.

In a statement Thursday, officials say new analysis of DNA evidence allowed them to establish that 29-year-old Barbara Hall was killed in 1974 by Robert Edward Stansbury, an ice cream truck driver.

Hall, who was developmentally disabled, was abducted from the Pomona area Aug. 12 and her body discovered the next day on a trail. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Stansbury died in 2003 in San Quentin prison at age 60 while on death row for the 1982 rape and murder of a 10-year-old girl whose body was found in Pasadena.

Detectives think he may have been responsible for other crimes too.

(© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

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