48 Hours - A Tragic Journey

On December 20, 1980, teenage sweethearts Sabrina Gonsalves and John Riggins were supposed to attend a birthday party but never arrived. 36 hours later their bodies were found by police in a California ravine. The case went unsolved. Then in 2002, using advanced DNA technology, police were able to match samples stored in a FBI database to a convicted rapist. “48 Hours" correspondent Troy Roberts reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 5/17/2014. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.

Duration: 41m
Broadcast on: 18 Dec 2024
Audio Format: other

[MUSIC PLAYING] Hi, I'm Tony de Cople. And as anchor of the CBS Evening News, I am filled with endless curiosity about our world and our society. Maybe you are, too. My new podcast is called Great Question. It's an effort to capture that curiosity and to answer the question you haven't heard a satisfying answer to. Or maybe haven't even heard asked. Follow and listen to Great Question with Tony de Cople wherever you get your podcasts. [MUSIC PLAYING] It could happen to anyone. Anyone of our children, anyone of our family, a good, wonderful, kind person that you love could suddenly disappear. That you could never see them again.

You can never talk about that person without everyone in the room thinking, oh, she's the one who's murdered. [MUSIC PLAYING] This will be homicide case number 95336. The trees that can be seen in the distance is the area of the ravine where the bodies have been located. This was a brutal, brutal slain. My name is Carol Daly. And back in 1980, I was assigned as a detective in the homicide unit with Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. Sabrina Gonzalez and John Riggins were college co-eds, 18 years old. They were just bright, lovely, young couple, carefree, and not a worry in the world. [MUSIC PLAYING] The disappearance was at Christmas time, 1980. They were headed to a birthday party for Sabrina's sister, Andrea. Sabrina and John left the condo and were on their way, but they never showed. And I started thinking what could possibly have gone wrong. First, we were told they found the van. And I ran to a phone to call my dad. And he said, Andrea, they think they have found the bodies. It was sickening the horrificness of what we were seeing and what they must have gone through. They had duct taped around their eyes and around their mouth. Looking at them, we knew their throats had been cut. And they were dumped, just like trash. Whoever was responsible for that was a cold-hearted animal, thoughtless, senseless, in taking a life, just for pleasure.

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