Overview
- A Sonoma County jury on February 13 found James Oliver Unick guilty of murdering 13-year-old Sarah Geer, with a sexual-assault special circumstance.
- Prosecutors say the conviction carries life without parole, and sentencing is scheduled for April 23.
- Investigators created a suspect DNA profile in 2003 from sperm on Geer’s clothing, but it did not match law-enforcement databases at the time.
- In 2021 the Cloverdale Police Department reopened the case, bringing in a private investigator, the California DOJ, and the FBI to apply advanced genetic genealogy.
- FBI analysts narrowed the source to one of four brothers and confirmed Unick’s identity by matching DNA from a discarded cigarette to DNA on Geer’s clothing, and jurors rejected his account after about two hours of deliberation.