In March last year, the state of Washington was in a state of shock when it emerged that Katherine Cunningham, a 26-year-old from the state had been beheaded and it was suspected that she had been decapitated with a Samurai sword by her boyfriend, Jacob Gonzales. At the time the police had stated, “Based on the evidence it appears that the victim was specifically targeted and this was not a random act.” However, the police were unable to track him down and arrest him, despite having issued a warrant against him. Just went it looked that he was never going to be found, the whole thing unraveled in sensational circumstances in faraway California.

Gonzalez was found dead in Yuba City in California back in November of 2018. His body was retrieved from the Feather River by the police, but at the time the police were unable to identify the body, and for months the person was simply referred to as ‘John Doe.’ However, the authorities in California did not leave things as they were and instead shared photographs of the dead body, including the tattoos that he had on his body. Eventually, the body was identified as that of Jacob Gonzales, who had been on the run from the police in Washington State for over a year.

However, just the identification through a bunch of tattoos was not enough for the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office in California. Once the body had been identified as that of Gonzales, the Sherriff’s office then compared DNA samples of both, and it showed as a perfect match. At the time of the murder of Katharine Cunningham, police in Washington had found the Samurai sword that had been used to behead her in a car. There was blood on the sword, and once it was tested, it was discovered that it contained Ms. Cunningham’s blood. However, even more importantly, the DNA samples found in the hilt of the sword matched with that of Gonzales. At the time, the police had said, “Those lab results indicate that Ms. Cunningham’s blood was on the blade of the sword, and Mr. Gonzales’ DNA was on the hilt.”