Jury deliberating in case of Covina woman’s 1985 slaying

62474-Jo Anne Marie Jones, 23, Covina-thumb-300x446-62473.jpg
POMONA — The fate of a 56-year-old man accused of kidnapping and murdering a 23-year-old aspiring model from Covina more than 27 years ago is in the hands of a Pomona Superior Court jury as deliberations continue Monday.
Stafford Joel Spicer is charged with the slaying of Jo Anne Marie Jones, who disappeared after leaving her boyfriend’s Long Beach apartment on April 29, 1985.
He’s accused of stabbing the young woman to death during the course of a rape and robbery. Jones’ body was discovered June 8, 1985, in a drainage culvert along East Fork Road in the Angeles National Forest north of Glendora.
After three weeks of testimony, the jury began deliberations late Thursday, court officials said.
Spicer was questioned about Jones’ disappearance in the days after she went missing after he was spotted by Jones’ boyfriend driving her Chevrolet Camaro in Long Beach on May 2, 1985, according to Los Angeles County sheriff’s investigators. But there was not enough evidence to pursue a murder charge against him for the slaying of Jones, whose body had not yet been discovered.
Advances in DNA technology produced new evidence in 2009, when homicide detectives re-opened the case. Detectives arrested Spicer in Las Vegas on March 8, 2011, and he was extradited back to Los Angeles County to face trial.
PHOTO of Jo Anne Marie Jones – Courtesy
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