Unsolved case · 2008
Also known as Juliana Redding homicide
The short answer
Juliana Redding was strangled in her Santa Monica home in 2008, and the only person tried for her killing was acquitted.
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Suggest coverage for Killing of Juliana ReddingJuliana Redding was 21 when she was strangled to death in her Santa Monica, California, home on March 15, 2008. Her mother, unable to reach her, contacted police, who went to Redding's apartment in the 1500 block of Centinela Avenue on March 16. The Santa Monica Police Department's 2008 annual report says officers found her dead and quickly concluded that she had been assaulted. A later federal appellate opinion identifies strangulation as the cause of death and confirms that the apartment was the crime scene.
Santa Monica police continued investigating after the initial inquiry produced no immediate arrest. Detective Karen Thompson led the case. According to the Ninth Circuit's later account, investigators eventually matched DNA recovered from Redding's body to Kelly Soo Park. Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Park with murder in 2010. At her 2013 trial, prosecutors argued that Park's DNA on Redding's neck and elsewhere in the apartment connected her to a violent struggle and that the killing followed the collapse of a business negotiation involving Redding's father.
Park denied killing Redding. Her defense challenged the prosecution's interpretation of the DNA, arguing that it could have reached Redding's possessions through secondary transfer. Counsel also argued that prosecutors had not established a clear motive. The jury deliberated for more than a week. On June 4, 2013, it first acquitted Park of first-degree murder and then, after further argument and deliberation, acquitted her of the lesser second-degree murder charge. The Ninth Circuit subsequently summarized the result as an acquittal on all charges.
The acquittal is a final legal determination as to Park and must not be treated as evidence that she committed the crime. Because the homicide itself is established but no one has been held criminally responsible, the case is classified as unsolved. The coordinates below identify Santa Monica generally and do not pinpoint Redding's private residence.
Juliana Redding was strangled to death in her Santa Monica home.
Police found Redding dead after her mother reported being unable to contact her.
Kelly Soo Park was arrested and charged with Redding's murder.
A jury acquitted Kelly Soo Park of both first- and second-degree murder.
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On June 7, 2013, 23-year-old John Zawahri killed his father and brother and set fire to their Santa Monica home, then carjacked a driver and carried out a shooting spree that ended at the Santa Monica College library, where police killed him. Six people died, including the perpetrator, and four others were injured.
SOLVEDListenComputer Learning Center, Santa Monica, California · 1970s
Fernando Alcivar was killed and several people were wounded in a 1976 classroom shooting; the charged student was acquitted by reason of insanity.
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On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were stabbed to death outside Brown's Brentwood, Los Angeles condominium. Brown's ex-husband O. J. Simpson was charged with the murders, led police on a widely televised chase, and was later acquitted at criminal trial but found liable for both deaths in a subsequent civil suit.
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Singer Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, in Los Angeles from acute propofol intoxication administered by his personal physician, Conrad Murray. The Los Angeles County coroner ruled the death a homicide, and Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in November 2011.
Credit: CBS News / Travis Alexander (personal photo)Editorial useSourceSOLVEDListenMesa, Arizona, United States · 2000s
Travis Alexander, 30, was stabbed, slashed, and shot to death in his Mesa, Arizona home on June 4, 2008. His ex-girlfriend, Jodi Arias, was convicted of first-degree murder in 2013 and sentenced to life without parole in 2015 after two juries deadlocked on the death penalty.
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Natalee Holloway, an 18-year-old Alabama high school graduate, disappeared during a graduation trip to Aruba on May 30, 2005, and has never been found; Joran van der Sloot, last seen with her that night, was never charged over her disappearance in Aruba but later pleaded guilty to related U.S. extortion and wire-fraud charges and confessed to killing her.
