{"id":409833,"date":"2026-07-23T20:02:45","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T20:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/409833\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T20:02:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T20:02:45","slug":"serial-killer-charged-in-san-francisco-cold-case-murder-from-1992","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/409833\/","title":{"rendered":"Serial killer charged in San Francisco cold case murder from 1992"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/06\/16\/us-news\/breakthrough-on-serial-killer-the-doodler-after-string-of-murders-of-gay-men-investigator\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">serial killer<\/a> linked to the 1992 cold-case death of a San Francisco woman will finally face justice in California.<\/p>\n<p>Ricky Dawson, 65, was charged with murder, alongside special circumstances including a 2004 murder conviction in Florida, as well as allegations of rape and sodomy. <\/p>\n<p>Dawson was serving a life sentence in Colorado for the 1996 sexual assault and murder of a woman in Denver before being extradited to California. The killer, who pleaded not guilty on Monday in San Francisco, has been linked to four murders in four states.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.07225131;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40070782\" width=\"633\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ricky-dawson-65-charged-murder-135297190.jpg\" alt=\"Mugshot of Ricky Dawson, a 65-year-old Black man with a graying beard and short hair.\" class=\"wp-image-40070782\"  \/>Ricky Dawson, 65, has been linked to four murders in four states. Denver District Attorney&#8217;s Office<\/p>\n<p>In the California case, a woman was found dead May 1992 on the ground of an alley in the <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/03\/10\/us-news\/twisted-past-of-vicious-sf-chinatown-stabber-and-his-very-influential-father\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chinatown neighborhood of San Francisco<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Nancy Hernandez, 45, was apparently homeless and using a utility corridor as shelter, authorities said.<\/p>\n<p>An autopsy revealed she was beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled. There were multiple traumatic injuries and the cause of death was strangulation. <\/p>\n<p>The case went cold for decades until DNA technology revived it. In October 2023,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sanfranciscopolice.org\/news\/sfpd-solves-cold-case-homicide-1992-25-005\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> San Francisco police reopened the case<\/a> and allegedly matched collected DNA to Dawson. <\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.49926794;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"40070788\" width=\"885\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/car-drives-chinatown-october-11-135297747.jpg\" alt=\"A car drives through Chinatown in San Francisco, with buildings displaying colorful signs and lanterns hanging overhead.\" class=\"wp-image-40070788\"  \/>A woman was found dead in May 1992 on the ground of an alley in San Francisco\u2019s Chinatown neighborhood. Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Dawson will appear July 30 for a preliminary hearing in the San Francisco case.<\/p>\n<p>Dawson had pled guilty in 2001 to the second-degree murder and sexual assault of a woman in Panama Beach, Florida, before his extradition to Colorado for the sexual assault and strangulation murder of a Colorado woman, Terri Turachek, in 1996.<\/p>\n<p>One more case could be awaiting him in Washington state. <\/p>\n<p>His DNA profile allegedly matches DNA obtained in a 2000 cold case murder of Seattle victim Debbie Cashio, who had multiple blunt force trauma injuries and also died by strangulation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A serial killer linked to the 1992 cold-case death of a San Francisco woman will finally face justice&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[28105,4182,8947,266,7563,101,103,102,104,106,105,3586],"class_list":["post-409833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-cold-cases","tag-metro","tag-murders","tag-northern-california","tag-rape","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}