The brutal murder of Michelle Marie Veal has finally been solved, more than 25 years after her death, the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday.
Veal’s body was found July 15, 1996, on Stony Point Road in unincorporated Sonoma County, a long stretch of road surrounded by only grass and a few wineries. A survey crew in the area found her body in the nude, and later autopsies revealed injuries consistent with blunt head force trauma.
But evidence gathered by detectives shortly after her murder turned up no leads; the investigation went dark.
Twenty-five years later, Sonoma County detectives once again submitted the evidence to the Serological Research Institute in Richmond, the sheriff’s office said, for DNA testing. A breakthrough came in January.
The Department of Justice notified local authorities that the DNA evidence submitted by the sheriff’s office matched with its “CODIS” — or Combined DNA Index System, a DNA collection maintained by the FBI. It was linked to Jack Bokin.
Bokin was sentenced to 231 years in prison in 2000 after he was convicted of 19 felony counts related to kidnapping, raping and attempting to murder multiple sex workers.
In one instance, Bokin bludgeoned a woman with a blunt instrument until she faked her death. He proceeded to dump her body in the bay.
U.S. Superior Court Judge James Warren, at the time, called Bokin’s attacks “about as chilling as any that have come before this court.” He attempted to free himself from court, at one point, using a self-made handcuff key and pushing past the bailiff, before he was tackled on the court balcony.
“The court finds there was a deliberate, well-thought-out plan, a sophisticated attack on very insecure and weak people in society,” Warren said at the time.
Bokin died in prison last December.
