CASE OF INTEREST

Date: June 18, 2004

Case: People v. Dennis Nelson

Contact: Lana Wyant, Special Assistant Deputy District Attorney, (916) 764-0058

District Attorney Jan Scully announced today the return of a First Degree Murder conviction in the case of the People v. Dennis Nelson.

In February of 1976, Ollie George was a 19-year old college student living with her parents. On February 23, 1976, Ms. George left her parent's home in the Del Paso area of Sacramento to pick up some items at a nearby shopping center. Shortly after, she telephoned her mother and advised her that she was at the Safeway/Pay-N-Save shopping center, but was having trouble starting her brother's car which she was driving that day. Ollie George never returned home. The car she drove was found in that parking lot, unlocked, with the keys in the ignition. Two days later the body of Ollie George was found face down adjacent to a pond in a rural area of Rio Linda.

The case was investigated at the time of the murder, but no suspects were arrested. In August 2001, items of evidence collected in this case were sent to the Sacramento County District Attorney's Crime Laboratory for DNA testing. This DNA profile was thereafter entered into the Convicted Offender DNA Databank and a match was made to the defendant Dennis Nelson. At the time of his arrest Mr. Nelson was serving a prison sentence for a 1986 kidnap/rape conviction and was scheduled to be released from prison within weeks of being arrested for the murder of Ollie George.

After several weeks of trial the jury began deliberations on Wednesday afternoon and returned their verdict this morning. The mother and many siblings of the victim were in attendance throughout the trial and for today's verdict. After the verdict the victim's family had an opportunity to express their gratefulness to the jurors for bringing about a degree of justice. Mr. Nelson is scheduled to be sentenced on July 15, 2004 at 9:00 am in Department 41 of the Sacramento County Superior Court.

Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Jeff Rose, who tried the case, stated:
"The jury did a great job reviewing all of the evidence in this case. While the verdict hopefully brings some closure to the George family, it guarantees that a very dangerous man doesn't have further opportunities to prey upon our community.

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