Troy Roberts
Appearances
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Better let that anger go, brother. David Hunt and Doug Lehner maintain their innocence to this day. Did you kill Sabrina and John? No. Did your brother mastermind these killings? No.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Both men admit they were drug addicts and thieves, but insist they would never commit murder. Both of you were described as sophisticated, savvy desperados.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Those dumb things Lehner did included stealing bed sheets from hotels. But this time, even with no physical evidence, he and the other members of the Hunk Group were facing the death penalty. It's ludicrous.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
On the eve of the Hunk Group's trial, there was a stunning development. And it involved that birthday gift Sabrina had intended to give her sister Andrea, a blanket. Apparently, the killer had unwrapped it and left semen stains that went unnoticed for years. Those stains could now be tested for DNA, a forensic tool that didn't exist at the time of the murders.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Police asked for blood samples from the accused. What did your attorney advise you to do?
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
And as they predicted, the DNA on the blanket did not match any of the men in the Hunk group. So in January 1993, all the charges were dropped.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
After their son John was murdered... Oh, it's so pretty. Dr. Richard Riggins and his wife Kate still had two younger children to raise, son Robert and daughter Carrie.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The lack of an arrest made it even harder. But by 2002, DNA science had advanced even more. The State Crime Lab was now routinely comparing DNA from cold cases to that of convicted criminals stored in a new database. When they uploaded the DNA from those semen stains on the blanket, incredibly, there was a hit.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The suspect's name was Richard Hirshfield. Local investigators had never heard of him, but they soon learned he had a very dark past. Who is Richard Hirshfield?
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
At the time of the DNA hit, then 53-year-old Hirshfield was in prison for molesting two little girls. Many years earlier, in 1975, he had been convicted of rape in Northern California.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
In 2006, 48 Hours spoke to his California victims, two sisters, Marge and Michelle, who didn't want their last names used.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
They were 22 and 16 at the time he entered their apartment, demanding money. when they told him they had none.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Hirschfeld served only five years in prison for that crime. He was paroled in July 1980.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
But this time, Hirshfield wasn't going anywhere. He remained behind bars in Washington in the child molestation case, while California investigators cemented theirs.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The answer to both questions was yes. Hirshfield once had friends in Davis who lived across the street from the condo Andrea and Sabrina shared. And that's where authorities believe Sabrina and John were abducted. So this was five days before Christmas? Yes. Most of the students had gone home?
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
And because this place was deserted, no one could hear their cries if they were abducted in the complex.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Investigators also learned that Richard Hirshfield had her brother, Joseph, who was living in this house near Sacramento at the time of the murders. It's just a few miles from where the bodies were dumped.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The next day, Joseph Hirschfeld got into his car and committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning. The note he left behind was a bombshell.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Joseph's DNA was never found in the Riggins van, and no one knows exactly what role he played in the murders. But even with strong evidence, Richard's DNA and Joseph's suicide note, the case was moving at a snail's pace. It took 10 years to bring this case to trial.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The case had over 200,000 pages of discovery. Hirschfeld's defense team would file more than 200 motions and be granted many delays.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
And time took its toll. Sabrina and Andrea's father, George, received a devastating diagnosis. He had Alzheimer's.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Finally, in September 2012, 10 years after the DNA hit and almost 32 years after the notorious murders, the trial of Richard Hirschfeld was set to begin.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The now 63-year-old Richard Hershfield enters court in a wheelchair, barely resembling the menacing figure he once was. Why didn't you want to be in the courtroom to hear all that testimony? Some of it graphic in nature.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The prosecution has a powerful case against Hirschfeld, starting with the DNA match.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
...does not deny it's Hirshfield's DNA on the blanket, but insists it could have gotten there some other way. His DNA just magically appeared on its own on this blanket.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Prosecutor Dawn Bladet points out Sabrina's DNA was found mixed in with Hirschfeld's, evidence of a sexual assault.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Then there's Joseph Hirshfield's suicide note, implicating his brother Richard in the murders.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
It was 2002, shortly after the DNA hit, when investigators came calling. Lana sent them to Joseph's workplace.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The next night, Lana discovered her husband's body in his car, along with that suicide note.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The prosecutor reads only part of that note to the jury because the defense has succeeded in getting the most incriminating part redacted. What the jury doesn't hear or see is this. Richard did commit those murders, and I didn't kill anyone.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The prosecutor wants the jury to have no doubt which brother was capable of committing the murders. Judge Michael Sweet allows testimony from Richard Hershfield's other victims because of similarities in the crimes. The woman Hershfield raped in 1975, Marge, is eager to help put him away for good.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Marge takes the stand and confronts her rapist for the second time in 37 years.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Faced with such damaging testimony, defense attorney Parisi decides her best strategy is to point the finger right back at the Hunt group, in spite of the DNA pointing elsewhere.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The defense's star witness is a paid police informant who at one point committed robberies with David Hunt.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
48 hours agreed not to show his face. In 1987, detectives sent Ray Gonzalez to meet with Hunt associate Richard Thompson to try to get him to implicate David Hunt in the murders.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Although he was supposed to be secretly recording this meeting with Thompson, Gonzalez failed to get any of this alleged confession on tape.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
while Gonzalez spent a great deal of time on the stand saying he couldn't remember. For David Hunt, this is one case he'd rather forget. How does it feel right now with the Hunt group back in the news?
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
In the end, the defense never called on David Hunt to testify, and he was greatly relieved. He says he left his criminal life behind long ago and found redemption through his Christian faith.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Hunt is hoping to live to see his name cleared once and for all with a guilty verdict against Hirschfeld.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Sabrina and John's families are hoping they can help make that verdict happen.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The case against Richard Hirschfeld is about to be handed to the jury, and the stakes couldn't be any higher. He deserves death? Absolutely. You didn't hesitate? No. Prosecutor Dawn Bladet delivers an emotional closing argument.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
To cast doubt on the DNA, Linda Parisi suggests the blanket could have been contaminated through careless handling by investigators.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Blede doesn't mince words as she pounces on that other defense theory of how Hirschfeld's DNA might have gotten on that blanket.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Guilty in the murders of both John and Sabrina. It is a huge relief for the families.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
A private man, Dr. Richard Riggins has never so publicly shared the deep pain of his loss.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
While the prosecutor pushes for the death penalty, defense attorney Parisi hopes the jury will show mercy and spare Hershfield's life.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
And Parisi believes there's another reason her client cannot help being prone to violence.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Defense witness Dr. Douglas Tucker has studied MRIs of Hirschfield's brain.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
And as Judge Michael Sweet later upholds the death sentence, he directly addresses Sabrina and John's families. It is January 25, 2013, 32 years after the murders. You have endured so much.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
And the families are forever grateful to the prosecutor who finally closed this case, a case she herself will never forget. Did you make a silent promise to these young victims?
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
I'm Troy Roberts. The Sweetheart Murders. The wheels of justice turn slowly, but I've never covered a story quite like this. It's hard to imagine that it would take more than three decades to find the killer and bring him to trial.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Sabrina Gonzalez's mother, Kim, and her father, George, weren't sure they'd live to see the day.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Over the decades, Andrea Gonzalez Rosenstein has remained devoted to keeping her baby sister's memory alive. Tell me about Sabrina.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Andrea named her firstborn Sabrina, and after having her third child, she decided to adopt three more.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Back in the summer of 1980, Andrea was already attending the University of California at Davis when her sister moved in with her. Sabrina was excited to begin her own college career. That summer, Sabrina met John Riggins while working for the town's recreation department.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
John had been a popular high school athlete in Davis, but he stood out for another reason as well. When he was much younger, he had this mop of red hair that got a lot of attention.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Kate and Dr. Richard Riggins, an orthopedic surgeon, were proud of their son. John was considering following in his father's footsteps. Do you ever think about what kind of man your son would have become? He would have been 51 years old now.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The night of December 20th, 1980, Sabrina and John were expected at that surprise party for Andrea's 22nd birthday. But they never showed and never called.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Sabrina and John had been missing for 36 hours when police found the Riggins family van abandoned about 30 miles east of Davis in Sacramento County. Former detective Carol Daly.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
But a few hours later, Detective Daley received the call that the bodies had been found just under a mile away, discarded in that ravine.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
There were signs that Sabrina had been sexually assaulted. John had a head injury suggesting he fought to protect her. Eighteen, they're just children.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
I understand that you wake up in the middle of the night thinking of your son.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
The case became known as the Sweetheart Murders. Investigators from two counties mobilized to hunt down this sadistic killer, but they had no idea just how difficult that would be.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
As the town of Davis said goodbye to the two sweethearts, their chilling murders had police fearing a serial killer could be on the loose.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Investigator Ron Garverick is with the Sacramento District Attorney's Office.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Police received hundreds of tips. They even released this composite sketch of a suspicious man spotted in the area.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
This is the kind of rough brush that the bodies were found in? Yeah. It's just by luck that the officers found the bodies, right?
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
But the investigation went nowhere and the trail went cold. Year after year, the lack of answers only added to the family's pain.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Six years passed, and then a tip led police to revisit another double murder that happened around the same time to see if there was any connection.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
Like John and Sabrina, this college couple was abducted from a public place, killed execution style, and then dumped around the Sacramento area. But in this case, police quickly made an arrest and got a conviction. The killer was this man, Gerald Gallego, a violent sexual predator. But on the night John and Sabrina were killed, he had an airtight alibi. He was already in jail.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
And that's why police, looking at the sweetheart's case years later, arrived at an unusual theory that John and Sabrina's murder was a copycat crime committed by Gallego's friends to try and clear him.
48 Hours
A Tragic Journey
In 1989, nine years after the Sweetheart murders, police arrested David Hunt, Gallego's half-brother, who also had a criminal past. Believing he had help, they rounded up Hunt's wife, Sue Ellen, and his partners in crime, Richard Thompson and Doug Lehner. They became known as the Hunt Group. All four were charged with the murders of John and Sabrina.