Man kidnapped mall manager 29 years ago, CA officials say. Now DNA leads to charges
.jpg "A man has been charged in the kidnapping of a mall manager from 29 years ago, California prosecutors said.")
A man has been charged in the kidnapping of a mall manager from 29 years ago, California prosecutors said.
Thomas John Loguidice, 65, is accused of kidnapping a 21-year-old manager at knifepoint at Oakridge Mall in San Jose as she tried to open a store on Jan. 13, 1994, a news release from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office said.
Loguidice forced the woman into the storage room, where he put her “on the ground, bound her wrists, and tied her to a pipe,” the Jan. 17, 2023, release said.
He stole some cash from the showroom register before returning to sexually assault the restrained woman and fleeing, prosecutors said.
“The San Jose Police Department exhausted several leads, and the case eventually went cold,” prosecutors said.
Decades later, the district attorney’s cold case unit found that “DNA collected from the 1994 crime scene matched an offender profile in the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS),” prosecutors said.
The profile belonged to Loguidice, who was in the system after being convicted of the sexual abuse of a child in 2012, prosecutors said. He’s serving a 40-year prison sentence.
Loguidice was indicted on Dec. 14 on a charge of “kidnapping with the intent to commit robbery,” prosecutors said.
“The grand jury also found the crime involved the use of a deadly weapon, the threat of great bodily harm, and a high degree of callousness,” prosecutors said.
Loguidice was not charged with sexual assault, however, as “the statute of limitations for that crime expired in 2000,” prosecutors said.
He has yet to be assigned a public defender, according to an email to McClatchy News from the district attorney’s office.
Loguidice is expected to appear in court on Jan. 18, prosecutors said.
“He faces life in prison on top of the sentence he is currently serving,” according to the release.
This story was originally published January 17, 2023 at 3:22 PM with the headline "Man kidnapped mall manager 29 years ago, CA officials say. Now DNA leads to charges."
