On the Case With Paula Zahn: Where was Angelica Ramirez's body found?

Angelica Ramirez (10) went missing from a Visalia Swap Meet ground in March 1994 after walking to the restroom only a few meters away from her parents' booth. Her body was eventually found two days later in a canal, about 30 miles from where she disappeared; Ramirez had been r*ped and strangled to death.

The case remained unsolved for nearly three decades until detectives used the suspect's DNA collected from the scene to find a potential match using GEDMatch. The match found led them to Los Angeles's Ramiro Villegas, a man with a history of s*xual assault of children who had a lengthy criminal record. Sadly, Villegas died long before the discovery was made.

On the Case With Paula Zahn revisited Angelica Ramirez's tragedy in an episode titled Tragedy in Visalia, this Wednesday, June 14, on Oxygen. The official synopsis of the episode states:

"The abduction of a young girl sends a relentless detective on a quest to bring justice to her heartbroken family."

Disclaimer: This article contains information about a murder and s*xual assault that may be disturbing to some readers. Discretion is advised.

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Angelica Ramirez was at a Visalia Swap Meet ground with her parents when she was kidnapped, r*ped, and strangled to death

Angelica Ramirez was at a Visalia Swap Meet ground in the morning hours of March 3, 1994, when she walked to a nearby public restroom, merely a few feet from her parents' booth and disappeared.

When the 10-year-old failed to return for quite some time, her parents grew concerned and initiated a seach for her, but to no avail. She was reported missing shortly after noon that same day. Detectives used tracking dogs to sniff out her whereabouts but her scent was soon lost and so were the hopes to find her alive.

Two days later, on March 5, a farm worker found her body dumped in an Avenue 96 canal in Pixley. The young victim had been r*ped and strangled to death. Her body was successfully identified and evidence, including DNA, was collected from the scene. Detectives soon pursued a few failed leads and eventually started to rely on the DNA from the crime scene; it took them 28 years to find a match using the evidence after spending years to find unsuccessful links on CODIS.

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A DNA match on GEDMatch aided the decades-long investigation to locate Angelica Ramirez's killer

The breakthrough came in February 2022 after local police, with the assistance of the FBI Forensic Genealogy Unit, uploaded the evidence to GEDMatch, a genetic genealogy database where people upload their samples to find matches with already uploaded DNA files from others.

By March 2022, they got a solid firm match which led them to Los Angeles where Ramiro Villegas resided. His family claimed he had a history of s*xually assaulting children and had links to the place from where Angelica Ramirez went missing around the same time of her disappearance. The suspect was then positively identified as the killer.

Sadly, Villegas, who had a lengthy criminal background and had served time for charges related to the transportation of controlled substances for sale, operating a drug house, and child endangerment, was released from the state prison in October 2004.

Thereafter, Villegas was handed to the Immigration and Naturalization Services department before subsequently being deported to Mexico. About a decade later in December 2014, he died of valley fever while in Mexico.

The victim's family said that "at least now [they] have a face to the killer" and that they didn't "have to worry about this person being out there doing this to someone else" now.