26 years after a man was stabbed to death, Raleigh police charge suspect; here's how they caught him
RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- A man connected to a 26-year-old cold case is back in North Carolina and facing murder charges.
According to the Raleigh Police Department (RPD), on Dec. 12, 1998, officers responded to a report of a dead person in the 600 block of Gaston Street. When officers arrived they found 36-year-old Bernard Walker with stab wounds. Walker died from his injuries.
10 years later, an arrest warrant was issued for Eduardo Corona Gonzalez in January 2008, however, investigators learned Gonzalez had been deported on Feb. 12, 2002. He was identified as the suspect after police said a palm print database developed by the City-County Bureau of Identification (CCBI) in 2007 helped authorities (in 2008) to find a match to a palm print recovered from the scene.
On Nov. 20, RPD was notified that Gonzalez had been detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Arizona as a result of a National Crime Information Center (NCIC) hit, and he was taken into custody.
Raleigh Police took custody of Eduardo Gonzalez on Thursday, December 19. He was booked into the Wake County Detention Center on the murder charge.
Friday afternoon, Gonzalez stood silently, listening intently to a translator during a brief court appearance.
How the case was solved
"This is the classic example of how teams solve murders, not individuals. And you'll see that collaboration is the key to law enforcement solving these old cases," said Joe Kennedy, a retired NCIS agent who is the founder of Carolinas Cold Case Coalition.
He credited authorities' efforts in continuing to pursue this case.
"Raleigh PD has always put an emphasis on solving cold cases, which you'll see only about 20% of law enforcement agencies have some type of unit just dedicated to cold cases," said Kennedy.
"When a law enforcement agency commits to prioritizing cold cases, it really tells those families that they are committed to resolving these crimes, to getting these bad people off the street and holding them accountable. You know, if you leave somebody out there that's done this once, there's a pretty high likelihood that they could do it again," said Ryan Backmann, the founder and executive director of Project Cold Case.
Backmann started the organization after the 2009 murder of his father in Jacksonville, Florida, a case that remains open.
"On a personal level, these families deserve the answers. They deserve to know who did this to their loved one and have some semblance of justice," said Backmann.
At this time, it's unclear if Gonzalez was arrested after recently entering the country or if he had been in Arizona for some period of time. ABC 11 has reached out to US Customs and Border Protection to learn more details about his arrest.
Kennedy discussed the evolution of investigative tools, which have helped crack cold cases.
"Some of the advances in just technology have changed tremendously. The DNA world has exploded with genetic genealogy, but also biometric databases," Kennedy explained.
Prior reporting by our newsgathering partners at the News & Observer noted Walker was staying at the homeless shelter on Wilmington Street prior to his death, and had lived in Raleigh for three to four years. Staffers at the shelter described him as a "quiet, pleasant guy who never caused us any trouble."
As of Friday morning, Raleigh Police tell ABC 11 they had not been able to contact Walker's family members.
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