HAYWARD — The cold cases of two East Bay women who were murdered and sexually assaulted seven years apart in the 1970s in eerily similar circumstances — home intrusions committed while other family members were asleep — now have a suspect: A man who died in 2007 after DNA genealogy analysis linked him to the victims.
Hayward and Newark police announced Thursday that Fred Farnham, who died at the age of 73, is responsible for the slayings of Nellie Ann Hicks in 1972 in Newark and Theresa Pica in Hayward in 1979. Both women were found by family members who woke up in the morning to discover their loved ones’ bodies bludgeoned and raped; an intruder had quietly entered their homes and attacked them as they slept in their living rooms.
DNA evidence retrieved from Pica’s body had been analyzed multiple times in the past two decades, and several people who were investigated as possible assailants were excluded from suspicion. One potential suspect was exhumed two years ago and was also later excluded.
But this past December, Hayward and Newark investigators consulted with the FBI to analyze the DNA and the results led Farnham being identified as the killer. They say Farnham is likely to be suspected in other unsolved murders.
Pica, 48, was discovered slumped over her couch, face down, by one of her twin 10-year-old daughters on May 15, 1979 at their home on Edloe Drive in Hayward. Her nightgown had been pulled up, exposing her legs, her hands were bound behind her back with rope, and a blood-stained rock was found next to her. A shirt had been used to gag her, police found.
She was last seen alive the night before by her three children. A front room window had been pried open, and the only witness account of an intruder came from a neighbor who heard rustling near the home in the middle of the night.
Pica’s purse was missing, and her wallet and other contents were later discovered in a neighbor’s yard and in a garbage can down the street. Several people were investigated in the ensuing decades, but no suspects emerged until now.
Hicks, a 59-year-old fourth-grade teacher at Ashland School in San Lorenzo, was found dead May 10, 1972 in her Newark home. Her body was partially naked, and police determined that she had been raped and bludgeoned with a brick wrapped in pantyhose. The brutality was immediately apparent, with her head split open by the force of the blows.
Evidence at the scene indicated that her killer entered the home through an unlocked sliding glass door and used manicure scissors to cut her dress and bra. The only forensic evidence that police recovered were fingerprints that for decades were never tied to a specific person.
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What made the killing even more notorious is the fact that her adult son and his wife as well as her longtime friend all lived in the home, and were asleep as the slaying unfolded. That led police to suspect that the intruder knocked her unconscious before sexually assaulting her.
A motive for the killing eluded everyone who knew Hicks, who was remembered as a well-liked, respected teacher. She left an abusive husband a decade prior, but that thread and interrogations of other men she dated proved fruitless in finding a possible suspect.
Hicks’ housemate, a fellow teacher, briefly spoke with her around 1 a.m. the morning of the killing, dozing off on a living room sofa. It was the last time she was seen alive.
About four hours later, Hicks’ son discovered her lifeless body in the same room. Hicks’ wallet was missing, though it was later found a few blocks away next to a pair of blood-stained panties.
Staff writers Nate Gartrell and Sandra Gonzales contributed to this report.
Check back later for updates to this story.
