Zachary Jackson was killed in 1993. Now his kids' mom and her then-boyfriend are in custody.
Two people have been arrested in a man's 1993 cold case murder, including the mother of his two children, Northern California authorities announced.
On June 17, 1993, Zachary Jackson, 30, was found shot to death in his home in Hayward, about 30 miles from San Francisco, Alameda County Sheriff’s Detective Pat Smyth said. Authorities believe Jackson was killed around June 14.
Now the mother of Jackson’s children, Veronica Fonseca, and her boyfriend from 1993, Anthony Fox, are in custody for his murder, Smyth said at a news conference on Monday.
“We believe they were both there and that Mr. Fox was the one who pulled the trigger,” he said.
In 1993, Jackson and Fonseca shared a 4-year-old daughter -- who was in Jackson's custody -- and a 1-year-old son, who was in Fonseca's custody, Smyth said.
Fonseca was interviewed several times during the initial investigation, but nothing at the time led investigators to believe she was involved, Smyth said. Fox wasn't interviewed at the time, Smyth said, adding that investigators at first focused on a dispute between Jackson and his landlord.
"In 1993, they did not have a lot of the things that we have available to us today, investigatively, to find leads,” Smyth explained. "No electronic footprint like we have these days. They relied heavily on witnesses, fingerprint, that sort of thing. DNA was in its infancy."
"Without any viable leads," Smyth said, the case went cold.
In 2014, a tipster reported having information about who was responsible and identified Fonseca and Fox, Smyth said.
But over the next year or so, investigators "encountered a roadblock" that stalled the case, Smyth said.
Several more years passed, and in 2021, someone left an anonymous tip on the sheriff department’s website identifying Fonseca and Fox, he said.
Smyth interviewed the tipster, but he said there was still an "impediment in the case." He did not elaborate on the impediment.
"The case really didn’t move forward until this year, when we developed an investigative plan to try to bring this case forward," Smyth said.
Over the last few months, "there’s been a lot of investigative resources poured into this case," Smyth said, and more witnesses cooperated and "told a similar story as to our previous tipsters."
On Thursday, Fonseca was arrested in New York City and Fox was arrested in Iowa on charges of murder and first-degree residential burglary, according to Smyth and the Alameda County District Attorney's Office. Fonseca and Fox have not yet been transferred to Alameda County, officials said.
Smyth declined to discuss the evidence against them but called the case a "good example of what happens when good people have the courage to come forward ... coupled with law enforcement leveraging all investigative resources to bring a resolution."
