On the evening of November 7, 1979, 19-year-old Linda Ann Jozovich, a female college student, took a break from her job as a clerk at a Mervyn's department store in Santa Clara, California. She walked out to the parking lot to have a snack in her car and was never seen again. When she failed to return to work, her concerned co-workers contacted her parents. Her orange Datsun was later discovered abandoned near a medical center in San Jose, its interior ransacked and the contents of her purse strewn across the floor. For years, her disappearance remained a painful mystery for her family and investigators, who suspected foul play but had no leads. The case went cold, leaving a void of unanswered questions.
The silence in the case was partially broken in 1995 when a hiker exploring the rugged terrain of the Santa Cruz Mountains discovered a human jawbone and several ribs near the Lexington Reservoir. These remains were later identified as belonging to Linda Ann Jozovich. The grim discovery confirmed her family's worst fears, but the circumstances of her death were still unknown. In 2004, more of her remains, including her skull and upper jaw, were found in the same wooded area by another hiker. Despite these findings, the investigation yielded no new leads, and the case once again stalled, leaving the identity of her killer a secret buried in the hills.
The break in the long-dormant case came from an unexpected source in October 2007. An inmate already serving life sentences for other murders, Terry Childs, confessed to killing Jozovich. Childs, a serial killer, was incarcerated for the 1985 slaying of 17-year-old Lois Sigala and a murder in Nevada. He told investigators that on the night of Jozovich's disappearance, he had a furious argument with his mother and left his house in a rage. He came across Jozovich in the Mervyn's parking lot and impulsively abducted her, beating her senseless before forcing her into her own car. He then drove to a remote location near the Lexington Reservoir where he beat, tortured, strangled, and repeatedly stabbed her to death. Childs claimed that for years he had been haunted by Jozovich's ghost, which compelled him to confess to free himself from the torment. As part of his confession, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. In 2008, Terry Childs was convicted of the murder of Linda Ann Jozovich and sentenced to another term of life in prison without the chance of parole, finally bringing a resolution to a case that had remained unsolved for nearly three decades.
