Police make arrest in 1991 California double murder case. Was hidden gold the motive?
Investigators thought they knew who committed a brutal double murder in Monterey County 32 years ago but didn’t have enough evidence to make an arrest.
That was until Monday, when Monterey County Sheriff’s officials arrested an 85-year-old man in the 1991 slaying of George Smith and Eva Thompson. New DNA testing appeared to play a role in the arrest.
Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine M. Pacioni announced Tuesday morning that Fresno resident Ira Ulyesses Bastian had been charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The charges carry special circumstance allegations that Bastian murdered the two victims during a burglary.
Bastian pleaded not guilty to both charges in a Salinas courthouse Tuesday, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew L’Heureux.
It’s unclear if Bastian was represented by a county public defender. Attempts to reach him were unsuccessful. He’s due back in court on July 26 for a preliminary hearing.
His arrest, however, was treated as a long overdue victory by the district attorney’s office.
“It’s always really difficult to stomach this type of violence,” L’Heureux said in an interview with The Times. “It’s also extremely rewarding, with the assistance of others, to focus on who wronged somebody and to do something about it.”
Three people were arrested in connection with a mass shooting in Monterey County in March that left four people dead and seven others injured, authorities announced Friday.
At the time of the murders, then 67-year-old Smith and his wife Anna ran a popular diner, Smith’s Restaurant, in the unincorporated town of Prunedale, about eight miles north of Salinas on Highway 101.
The couple lived on a property located on the grounds of the restaurant, now shuttered, along with Anna Smith’s mother, then 79-year-old Eva Thompson.
Anna Smith returned from running errands in the evening of Nov. 11, 1991 and found her mother and husband “brutally stabbed to death,” according to the district attorney’s office.
George Smith was doing bookkeeping at a desk when he was murdered, according to a local television report. The bed-ridden Thompson was also stabbed to death.
Both victims displayed defensive injuries, according to L’Heureux, meaning they attempted to fight off their attacker.
Bastian, then 52, was a former Smith’s restaurant employee, having previously worked there about a year and a half earlier, according to L’Heureux.
Neighbors speculated that the Smith’s buried bars of gold on their property that may have been what Bastian was after, L’Heureux said.
A teachers’ union and community groups in Monterey County have sued agriculture officials and state regulators over the use of pesticides near schools.
“They were rumors that came out of this case and I guess I don’t know for sure if they did or didn’t [bury gold],” he said. “What I can say is that the stabbings happened in commission of the burglary.”
Bastian had been considered a suspect for years but was never arrested.
“It wasn’t until the recent investigation that everyone involved felt confident enough to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” L’Heureux said.
He wouldn’t confirm if a murder weapon had been recovered or what eventually led to Bastian’s arrest.
Pacioni noted that the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office pursued the case for decades and submitted DNA evidence for testing along the way. She added that this year “an additional round of DNA testing yielded sufficient evidence to support the arrest and filing of criminal charges.”
Citizens Against Homicide, a San Rafael-based nonprofit and anti-crime organization, offered a $50,000 reward at the time.
“When you look at these types of cold cases, it’s really only two things that led to arrests,” said Jan Miller, the group’s co-founder. “It’s either deathbed confessions or DNA.”
Bastian had been living independently in Fresno with the assistance of a caregiver when he was arrested on Monday.
“I’m mindful that there have been investigators who have been working on this for decades and I’m relatively new to it,” L’Heureux said. “We can’t forget, however, that these were good people living their day-to-day lives and didn’t deserve this.”
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