went cold.<\/a> Three years ago, DNA linked Steven Augusta Ridge of Dallas to the crime.<\/p>\nOn Monday, a Dallas County jury found Ridge guilty of capital murder for the 1996 slaying.<\/p>\n
The panel deliberated more than a dozen hours over three days. Judge Molly Francis sentenced Ridge, 59, to life in prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cHuge sighs of relief and some tears,\u201d Dallas County district attorney\u2019s office spokeswoman Claire Crouch said of the family\u2019s reaction to the verdict. The family declined an interview request made by The Dallas Morning News through the prosecutor’s office.<\/p>\n
Tamika\u00a0had been missing for four days when her body was discovered in February 1996 under the Cedar Crest Bridge. The crossing connects East Oak Cliff to South Dallas.<\/p>\n
Firefighters responded to a report of a small fire nearby.<\/p>\n
Semen collected from the body was used to create a DNA profile, but it wasn\u2019t until 2023\u00a0\u2014 after significant advances in DNA technology had been made\u00a0\u2014 that investigators got a match.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re here today because of the science,\u201d prosecutor Katherine\u00a0Lessing told jurors in her closing arguments. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter that it took 30 years to get here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defense attorney Messina\u00a0Madson argued the DNA evidence only showed that Ridge had sex with Tamika\u00a0\u2014 which was illegal due to her age\u00a0\u2014 but it didn\u2019t prove he killed her.<\/p>\n
Madson suggested that Tamika\u2019s adult boyfriend, who initially was a suspect in the case, could have killed her. He was a known drug dealer, the defense lawyer said, and had recently threatened to kill Tamika.<\/p>\n
Madson argued Tamika could have had sex with Ridge during the four days she was missing and been killed by someone else.<\/p>\n
Assistant District Attorney Kristin\u00a0Treager told jurors in her closings that the location of the recovered DNA matching Ridge meant the murder had to have happened shortly after the sexual assault.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what ties this man not only to the rape, but also to this murder,\u201d\u00a0Treager said.<\/p>\n
The prosecutor also pointed to evidence showing that gasoline had been poured on\u00a0Tamika\u2019s groin before the fire was set. The move was an attempt to destroy evidence, she argued.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to erase anything that could be tied back to him,\u201d Treager told jurors in her closing argument. \u201cTamika deserved better. This family deserved better. They\u2019ve been waiting 30 years for this day and we\u2019re here to get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The brutal murder of a Dallas teen remained a mystery for three decades.\u00a0Tamika Cromer had been raped, strangled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,92331],"class_list":["post-457513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-courts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}