The San Mateo County Sheriff's Office will hold a news conference Monday afternoon on the 30th anniversary of a cold-case rape and murder of a Modesto mother in an effort to revive the case.
Authorities are reopening the 1979 case because, although six potential suspects were questioned the year 43-year-old Roann Schweitzer was murdered, no arrests have been made to date in connection with her death, sheriff's Lt. Ray Lunny said.
Schweitzer was last seen leaving a San Francisco restaurant in early February.
Her body was found the next day in a remote area of San Bruno Mountain. An autopsy revealed she had been sexually assaulted and shot, Lonny said.
Schweitzer had taken her two daughters to dinner at the Canterbury Hotel at 750 Sutter St. in San Francisco the night of Feb. 2, 1979, when one of her daughters became ill, Lunny said.
Schweitzer left the restaurant to get her car from a nearby parking lot. She never returned.
Schweitzer was reported missing to the San Francisco Police Department, and her vehicle, which had disappeared from the parking lot, was entered into the Police Department's stolen vehicle log, Lunny said.
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The next day, a passerby discovered Schweitzer's body in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County on San Bruno Mountain, about 10 miles south of where she was last seen.
Schweitzer's car, a black and gold Ford Thunderbird, was found a short distance from where she had eaten dinner with her daughters the previous night, Lunny said.
It was determined Schweitzer had been sexually assaulted and shot, but there was no indication of where the shooting took place, according to Lunny.
Schweitzer was also missing some personal items when her body was found, including her ID, credit cards, cash and jewelry, Lunny said.
In May 2001, those items were examined for DNA evidence and a DNA profile was created. No matches have been found, however, despite the profile's entry into a federal DNA database.
At Monday's news conference, the sheriff's office, in cooperation with the Carole Sund/Carrington Memorial Reward Foundation, plans to announce a reward for information on the crime, Lunny said.
