SAN CARLOS, Calif. — A 61-year-old woman was arrested in Oklahoma in the 1993 killing of a San Carlos shop owner who was shot during a “robbery gone wrong," authorities in Northern California said Thursday.
Rayna Elizabeth Hoffman-Ramos was arrested in Dewey last week in a case that was cold for nearly 30 years. She is in Washington County Jail awaiting extradition to California to face charges in the April 26, 1993, fatal shooting of Shu Ming Tang, said San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Jacob Trickett at a Thursday news conference.
It was not immediately known if Hoffman-Ramos has retained an attorney. Officials with the San Mateo, Washington county sheriff's offices said they did not know if she has legal representation.
Tang was shot once in the chest while tending his mom-and-pop shop, the Devonshire Little Store, in the hills of San Carlos. He died later at a hospital, Trickett said.
The killing shocked the quiet bedroom community 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of San Francisco and attracted national attention after it was featured on “America's Most Wanted" that same year.
Detectives received information that a woman was seen leaving the store shortly after the shooting. They followed various leads but the case went unsolved for decades, Trickett said.
In 2018, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Detectives assigned to cold case investigations reviewed the case, Thanks to “the advancement in forensic technology” they identified Hoffman-Ramos, who lived in San Mateo County at the time of Tang's killing, as a suspect, he said.
Trickett declined to specify how detectives connected Hoffman-Ramos to the homicide. He said she was the sole suspect in the case.
“Mr. Tang was a husband, a father and a friend who came to the United States to provide a better life for his family,” San Carlos Mayor Sara McDowell said Thursday. “His death shook the community of San Carlos and has remained a topic of discussion over the years.”
Trickett said Tang's family has been informed of Hoffman-Ramos' arrest.
“The San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office would like to thank the Tang family for their support,” San Mateo County Sheriff Carlos Bolanos said. “I hope that your family will finally get the justice and closure that you deserve.”
Read the story on APNews.com here.
