Man accused of 1987 Fresno murder that went cold appears in court

FR ESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Nearly 40 years after Jacqueline Denise Henry's murder, Fresno County prosecutors are preparing to put her killer on trial.

Convicted sex offender Carl Eugene Sears faces one count of murder for Henry's death after prosecutors say he stabbed the 22-year-old woman multiple times back in 1987.

"Jacqueline was a very sweet person," Henry's sister recalled shortly after Sears' arrest last July. "Beautiful smile. Beautiful. She was a daughter, sister, aunt, and she was a beloved mother."

Police found Henry's body in a field at the corner of Church and Fig Avenues.

Sears pleaded not guilty to the murder last August, and on Tuesday, prosecutors worked to convince a Fresno judge they have enough evidence in the case.

They called retired crime scene investigator David Marrone as a witness.

"I could identify her positively from the fingerprints on file," Marrone said. "I scraped her fingernails, and I collected her clothing and her jewelry."

The judge also heard from the victim's God sister. Action News cannot report her name or show her face.

"After that phone call you had with Jacqueline, did you ever see her alive again?" the prosecutor asked. "No," the witness said.

All the testimony on Tuesday was decades in the making. Henry's murder had gone cold for years.

There were no witnesses and no technology to capture the crime. But there was DNA.

The California Department of Justice found a match in 2022.

It came back to Sears, and so did another one.

"The second sample was also an exact match," Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama said at a press conference last July.

The court hearing could extend until Friday as the judge hears more witness testimony.

It would then be up to the court to decide if prosecutors have enough evidence for the case to go to trial.

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