The unsolved slaying of 18-year-old Michelle “Missy” Jones of Fontana had haunted her family for decades.

Fontana police opened an investigation after her naked body was found in a grapefruit grove at Live Oak and Santa Ana avenues on July 5, 1980. She appeared to have been sexually assaulted. Any leads investigators had, however, went nowhere.

But in 2020, the San Bernardino County sheriff’s cold-case unit, assisted by a Fontana police detective and modern advances in DNA technology, matched DNA samples found on Jones’ body with samples in a database. Combined with interviews with Jones’ family members, the evidence pointed to Las Vegas resident Leonard Nash, a one-time boyfriend of one of Jones’ sisters.

Nash was arrested on Sept. 8 of that year.

And on Thursday, Nov. 13, a Superi

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