Four decades after 18-year-old Christine Gallegos was beaten, sexually assaulted, shot and stabbed to death, Salt Lake City police says they have identified a likely suspect in the case.

Ricky Lee Stallworth, who was a 27-year-old airman stationed at Hill Air Force Base in May 1985 when Gallegos was killed, was identified as the likely suspect in her death, police announced Thursday.

Stallworth died of natural causes in 2023, but a relative of his voluntarily provided a DNA sample that police say confirmed Stallworth‘s identification.

“I wish we could have got to him before he died,” Detective Cordon Parks said, as the department announced the case‘s closure.

Parks said Gallegos was last seen by loved ones shortly before trying to hitchhike to her job on May 15, 1985. Her body was found early the next morning in what’s now called the Ballpark neighborhood, The Salt Lake Tribune reported at the time.

She was found near 1384 South Jefferson Street at around 3:50 a.m., according to Parks. He said officials believe Stallworth likely picked her up and took her to a secluded location instead of work before assaulting her. She probably fought her way out of the car, he added.

“She left a blood trail up to the gutter of Jefferson Street,” Parks said.

Stallworth never came up in the initial police investigation of Gallegos’ death, Parks said. During their most recent investigation, he said, police found Stallworth would sometimes leave for the night without telling his spouse where he was going or what he was doing.

According to the state’s criminal database, the only crime Stallworth was ever accused of was a charge of communication fraud in 2020. He was accused of depositing a $9,000 check into a credit union account, and cashing out $7,100 the next day — before the credit union discovered the initial check was fraudulent, court records show.

Originally charged with a second-degree felony, Stallworth pleaded guilty to a class B misdemeanor, records show. He was sentenced to house confinement, ordered to wear an ankle monitor for 60 days in 2023, which ended a few months before his death.

Parks said police reports filed during the last two years of Stallworth‘s life say he was seen on State Street in the early morning hours.

Stallworth‘s relative voluntarily gave a DNA sample for the investigation, police said.

Police credit Othram Labs, a company focused on forensically solving cold cases, with making the forensic discovery. They also credited the national Sexual Assault Kit Initiative, supported by an agency in the U.S. Department of Justice, which provided a grant to the state that helped fund the investigation.

Steve O’Camb, a SAKI investigator with Utah’s State Bureau of Investigation, said the federal initiative first came to Utah in 2015 to test backlogged or only partially tested sexual assault kits.

O’Camb said the last SAKI grant it gave the state “offered advanced DNA testing for sexually motivated homicides.” Gallegos’ case fell under that classification, he said.

“The determination of our homicide detectives over the years, the collaboration with our partner agencies, has brought us here today,” Salt Lake City Police Chief Brian Redd said. “We just want to reiterate our commitment to solving cold cases.”

Gallegos’ mother, Leah, said Thursday she misses her daughter often, and thinks about the grandkids she might have had. She said she never stopped crying for her daughter.

“She was just special,” Leah Gallegos said. “She was outgoing, she was sweet, she was in love with her fiancé. … They took so much away when they took her away.”

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