DNA solves 1982 Sonoma County cold case, man gets life sentence
DNA from Sarah Geer’s underwear and a discarded cigarette ended a 44-year hunt for her killer, sending James Oliver Unick to prison for life without parole.
Judge Laura Passaglia sentenced James Oliver Unick, 64, to life in prison without the possibility of parole on July 10, closing a 44-year cold case tied to the rape and murder of 13-year-old Sarah Geer in Cloverdale.
Unick was found guilty in February of first-degree murder and a special circumstance involving sexual assault during the commission of the killing. Carla Rodriguez said, "While 44 years is too long to wait, justice has finally been served, both to Sarah’s loved ones as well as her community."
Geer left a friend’s residence in Cloverdale on Sunday, May 23, 1982, to walk downtown. She was accosted near an alley off a residential street, forcibly dragged behind an apartment building and fence, raped, and strangled with her own shorts.
The case stalled for years until a California Department of Justice criminalist developed a DNA profile in 2003 from sperm collected from Geer’s underwear. That profile did not match anyone in law-enforcement databases, and the investigation went cold again. It was revived in 2021, when Cloverdale police retained private investigator Kevin Cline and enlisted the FBI.
Investigators used genealogical analysis to narrow the source of the 2003 profile to one of four brothers, including Unick. Agents later surveilled him and collected a discarded cigarette in July 2024, and that sample matched the DNA profile from the crime scene evidence. Unick was arrested at his residence in Willows, California, that same month. He denied ever knowing Sarah Geer or having any contact with her when he was taken into custody.
Sarah Ann Geer’s murder may have been Cloverdale’s first homicide victim.
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