Murder Charges Filed in Two Cold Contra Costa County Cases Involving Sexual Assault

The Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office has charged 51-year-old William “Wild Bill” Huff with murder in two cold cases dating back more than 25 years after DNA evidence linked him to the crime scenes. Both victims were women who’d been sexually assaulted, strangled to death and found half-naked in Contra Costa County.

Huff will face special circumstance allegations of murder during the course of a sexual assault, according to prosecutors. Deanna Butterfield was 21 years old when she was found in Tilden Regional Park on Dec. 5, 1987. The cause of Butterfield’s death was determined to be asphyxia. She had a daughter who was 4 years old at the time, according to prosecutors.

Mueylin Saechao was described as an immigrant in her mid-50s from Laos. She was found strangled with a sock in the backyard of her boyfriend’s San Pablo residence in the 2000 block of Emeric Avenue on June 11, 1993. The Sheriff’s crime lab linked Huff to the murders of Butterfield and Saechao through DNA testing of biological evidence collected from their bodies, prosecutors said.

Huff was arrested on an unrelated matter in April 2014, according to Paul Holes, chief of forensics at the district attorney’s office. After Huff’s DNA was entered into CODIS, the FBI’s nationwide DNA database, he was linked to the murders of Butterfield and Saechao. Cold case investigators are actively looking into the possibility that Huff may be involved in other, similar crimes - but Holes said that will require further investigation.

“His DNA is in CODIS, so he would’ve hit to other cases by now if those cases had been worked,” Holes said. “I’m actively reaching out to agencies and asking if they’d have cases that would sort of fit what we know about his M.O.,” or modus operandi, “in these two cases. But it’s a small sample size.”

Huff is currently incarcerated in state prison in Vacaville, but should be transferred to the Martinez Detention Facility some time soon, according to Holes. Anyone with additional information that may connect Huff to other unsolved rape-asphyxiation assaults or murder cases is asked to call Holes at (925) 957-8751. Huff is known to have connections in Colusa, Redding, Oroville and Santa Cruz.

The county’s cold case unit is comprised of personnel from the district attorney’s office, the sheriff’s office’s crime lab, local police agencies and the FBI. They investigate unsolved homicides and sexual assaults by matching DNA samples obtained at the crime scene to state or federal DNA databases, according to prosecutors.

The charges filed against Huff are the result of a joint investigation between the cold case unit, the San Pablo Police Department and investigators from the East Bay Regional Park District, which oversees Tilden Regional Park.

By Bay City News

Photo via Shutterstock

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