Colorado Convict Linked To California Child Murder
DNA Evidence May Have Solved Decades-Old Crime
POSTED: 11:58 a.m. MST December 4, 2002
DNA evidence has tied a Colorado convict to the vicious 1979 rape and murder of an 8-year-old California girl, authorities revealed Wednesday.
Cannie Melinda Bullock was raped, choked and beaten to death on Aug. 25, 1979. The killer disappeared and her murder remained unsolved.
But using DNA tests unknown at the time, police said they now know who killed the girl.
Investigators charged a habitual child molester named Joseph Cordova, Jr. (pictured, left) Tuesday with murdering, raping and molesting Bullock. His DNA profile recently had been entered into a national database of convicted felons.
Cordova was not a suspect before the DNA match. He moved from California to Canada a couple months after Bullock's slaying, then moved to Colorado in 1980, investigators said.
Detectives were able to place Cordova living and working in San Pablo, Calif., at the time of Bullock's homicide and learned that he knew the girl's mother.
Cordova currently is locked up at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Crowley, Colo., where he was sent after pleading guilty to molesting an 11-year-old boy in Jefferson County.
Jefferson County District Attorney spokeswoman Pam Russell said Cordova was considered dangerous and had threatened attorneys in the district attorney's office.
"What we knew about him was that he was a really bad guy," Russell said. "He has a third eye tattooed into the middle of his forehead. It's like, 'I'm never sleeping. I'm always watching you.' "
Cordova's criminal convictions date back to 1977 in California for possessing dangerous weapons and assault. He had been arrested in Colorado for disorderly conduct, domestic violence, possession of controlled substances and drunken driving. He has been married at least three times and has seven children, authorities said.
Officials said Cordova had a parole hearing scheduled next month. Instead -- he'll be brought to California to face trial in the decades-old murder.
Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Harold Jewett said he'll seek the death penalty against Cordova.
Investigators charged a habitual child molester named Joseph Cordova, Jr. (pictured, left) Tuesday with murdering, raping and molesting Bullock. His DNA profile recently had been entered into a national database of convicted felons.
Cordova was not a suspect before the DNA match. He moved from California to Canada a couple months after Bullock's slaying, then moved to Colorado in 1980, investigators said.
Detectives were able to place Cordova living and working in San Pablo, Calif., at the time of Bullock's homicide and learned that he knew the girl's mother.
Cordova currently is locked up at the Arkansas Valley Correctional Facility in Crowley, Colo., where he was sent after pleading guilty to molesting an 11-year-old boy in Jefferson County.
Jefferson County District Attorney spokeswoman Pam Russell said Cordova was considered dangerous and had threatened attorneys in the district attorney's office.
"What we knew about him was that he was a really bad guy," Russell said. "He has a third eye tattooed into the middle of his forehead. It's like, 'I'm never sleeping. I'm always watching you.' "
Cordova's criminal convictions date back to 1977 in California for possessing dangerous weapons and assault. He had been arrested in Colorado for disorderly conduct, domestic violence, possession of controlled substances and drunken driving. He has been married at least three times and has seven children, authorities said.
Officials said Cordova had a parole hearing scheduled next month. Instead -- he'll be brought to California to face trial in the decades-old murder.
Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Harold Jewett said he'll seek the death penalty against Cordova.
Copyright 2002 by TheDenverChannel.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
