Big Bear Lake cold case: Jeff Maiorca arrested for wife's 2006 murder after DNA breakthrough

Jeff Maiorca has been arrested for the murder of his former wife Jill, whose remains were found in a cabin crawl space in 2020 and identified via DNA in 2023.

Former husband charged after remains identified beneath Big Bear Lake cabin

The former husband of Jill Maiorca, a 29-year-old woman reported missing in 2007, has been arrested on murder charges following a DNA-assisted breakthrough in a cold case that had gone unsolved for nearly two decades, abc7news.com reports.

Jill's remains were discovered in 2020, stored inside containers in the crawl space of a home on Forest Drive in Big Bear Lake, Southern California. Because the remains were severely decomposed and Jill had no known connection to the property, investigators were initially unable to make an identification.

San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said the department's cold case unit — established in 2008 — took up the case in 2023. Advances in DNA technology ultimately provided the answer.

"Through DNA analysis, we were able to determine it was Jill," Dicus said. "And as a result of this investigation, we believe that Jill was murdered back in 2006 but not reported missing until 2007."

Detectives subsequently focused on her former husband, Jeff Maiorca, and placed him under arrest. Investigators have not disclosed a possible motive.

Maiorca faces both first- and second-degree murder charges, with enhancements for the use of a "deadly weapon." He was scheduled for arraignment on 23 September, but the hearing was postponed to 12 October.

Dicus credited the cold case team's persistence for the outcome. "I always say when we're talking about homicides that there are two people that know what happened; generally, it's the suspect who did it and the homicide investigator who's after them," he said. "And I couldn't be more proud."

Source: Google News MT — Crime (en)