| For Immediate Release Case # 06ZF0131 August 31, 2012 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Chief of Staff Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami
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MAN LINKED THROUGH DNA SENTENCED TO LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE FOR COLD-CASE RAPE AND MURDER OF 42-YEAR-OLD ANAHEIM MARKET OWNER
SANTA ANA – A man was sentenced today to life in state prison without the possibility of parole for raping and murdering a 42-year-old woman behind the counter of her Anaheim market after being linked to the crime through DNA. Louis Roger Acosta Jr., 41, was found guilty May 21, 2012, in a court trial by the Honorable William Froeberg of one felony count of special circumstances murder in the commission of rape.
In the early morning hours of June 4, 1998, Acosta entered the D&D Market in Anaheim, where 42-year-old store owner Dung Duong was known to sleep behind the counter when the market was closed. Acosta repeatedly beat Duong in the head with a blunt object and then raped the bleeding victim on the small makeshift mattress behind the counter.
After raping Duong, Acosta fled the scene. The victim bled to death as a result of the injuries to her head and was discovered several hours later, at approximately 11:30 a.m., after a customer saw Duong in a pool of blood through the store window.
The case went unsolved until 2004, when Acosta was linked to the crime through DNA while serving time in Washington for robbery.
The Anaheim Police Department investigated this case. Senior Deputy District Attorney Howard Gundy of the Homicide Unit prosecuted this case.
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