Murder of Suzanne Bombardier

Suzanne A. "Suzie" Bombardier was kidnapped, raped, and stabbed to death on June 22, 1980. On June 27, her body was found by a fisherman, floating in the San Joaquin River east of Antioch, California near its bridge, 60 miles east of San Francisco. On December 11, 2017, after extensive DNA analysis, 63-year-old Mitchell Lynn Bacom, a convicted sex offender, was arrested as the prime suspect. He has been charged with kidnapping, rape, oral copulation, murder, and murder with use of a deadly weapon. This was Antioch's oldest cold case murder. At the time of Bombardier's homicide, Bacom was known to her family. Bombardier was raped, stabbed in the chest, and her heart was punctured. She was kidnapped from her sister's townhome in Antioch while she was babysitting her nieces. Her sister, Stephanie Mullen, arrived home at 4:00 a.m. to find Bombardier missing. Bombardier's father, Ted, said that she knew her killer, as there was no forced entry. Background: Fourteen-year-old Bombardier was an honor roll student at Antioch Junior High at the time of her homicide. She also belonged to the California Junior Scholastic Federation. She was buried at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Lafayette. Jennifer Kathleen Gibbons came across her grave in 2014 and started blogging about the unsolved case. This kept it top of mind for the public and later for investigators. In 2015, DNA samples from Bombardier's case were sent to the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office Forensic Laboratory for them to create a DNA profile. In early 2017, after advancements in DNA analysis technology, Antioch police were notified that a CODIS hit was made that tentatively identified Bacom as the perpetrator. After additional testing, when the samples were conclusively linked to Bacom through a federal DNA database, he was taken into custody without incident at his home. In 1973 Bacom was tried for several crimes, convicted, and sentenced to five years to life imprisonment. In 1981 he was convicted for several more crimes and sentenced to 24 years in prison. In 2002 he failed to register as a sex offender and was sentenced to four years in prison. Suspect: Mitchell Lynn Bacom is a native of Knightsen, California. He has brown eyes, and brown hair. He is 5'7", and weighs 185 pounds. He was a suspect in the case for a long time. Authorities will attempt to match Bacom's DNA to other cold cases.