Overview

• Gary Ramirez, 78, was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years for the 1982 murder of Karen Stitt in Sunnyvale, California.
• Stitt, 15, was sexually assaulted and stabbed over 50 times near a bus stop, with her body discovered the morning after the attack.
• The case went unsolved for decades until a 2019 tip led investigators to Ramirez, whose DNA matched evidence from the crime scene in 2022.
• Ramirez was arrested at his home in Makawao, Maui in August 2022 and pleaded no contest to first-degree murder in February 2025.
• Stitt’s family and the district attorney's office acknowledged the sentencing as a culmination of decades of investigative persistence and advancements in forensic science.