MODESTO, Calif. — After decades of searching for answers, the Modesto Police Department announced an arrest in a nearly 40-year-old cold case of a missing teenager.
Raymond Lewis Stafford was arrested in connection to the 1986 disappearance of 15-year-old Susan Bender.
Modesto police secured their warrant on Aug. 10 and days later, Stafford was arrested by deputies with the Van Zandt County Sheriff's Department in Texas. He was booked into their county jail on suspicion of murder with special circumstances.
Susan Bender was at a bus station in downtown Modesto on April 25, 1986 and was last seen getting into a green van at the bus depot, according to the Department of Justice.
Her case went cold, but in October of 2021, Modesto police announced they reopened Bender's case, noting potential areas of opportunity that might help them move it forward.
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