6-year-old missing boy, Jeremy Stoner, was found dead and a DNA evidence has led to the arrest of Fred Cain III after police arrested a suspect named Shawn Melton.
Jeremy Stoner of Vallejo, 6, was slayed and sexually assaulted in 1987.
Originally, police arrested a suspect named Shawn Melton and charged him with kidnapping and murder. However, a jury couldn’t reach a verdict in two trials.
After 3 decades, a DNA technology has led to the arrest of a new suspect named Fred Cain III in Oregon in September 2023.
Here’s what we know about what happened to Jeremy Stoner and the suspects in his tragic death.
What happened to Jeremy Stoner?
Jeremy Stoner was a 6-year-old boy who was abducted from near his home in Vallejo, California, about 30 miles north of San Francisco in 1987.
After four days of a thorough search for him, he was found dead and his body was discovered on Sherman Island in Sacramento County.
After investigators recovered his body from Sherman Island, about 30 miles east of Vallejo, they concluded that Jeremy had been sexually assaulted before he was murdered, local NBC affiliate KCRA reported.
Who have been arrested in Jeremy Stoner’s death?
After 36 years, investigators identified a new suspect via DNA evidence found at the scene.
Fred Cain III was taken into custody last Monday at his home in Central Point, Oregon, about 340 miles north of Vallejo.
He will be transported to Solano County to face a murder charge.
“I am so thankful to have such dedicated cold case investigators,” Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams told local ABC affiliate KGO-TV reported.
“No matter how much time goes by, they remain steadfast in their commitment to solving these horrific cases.”
But Cain wasn’t the first suspect arrested for Jeremy’s death.
In 1987, Shawn Melton was arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping.
“He appeared to have knowledge only the person responsible for the child’s death would know,” authorities said of Melton at the time.
But he was exonerated by the DNA evidence that eventually led police to Cain.
“I can’t imagine a worse false accusation,” Jim Hammer, a former San Francisco district attorney, told KGO-TV.
