Los Angeles County Criminal Justice

The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office has charged 63‑year‑old Brian Walton with one count of murder, with special‑circumstance allegations that the 1996 killing of 23‑year‑old Claudia Guevara occurred during the commission of rape and sodomy, after new DNA analysis allegedly linked him to the crime. Guevara disappeared on Feb. 20, 1996, after co‑workers dropped her at a bus stop in El Monte; her nude body was found the next day in a drainage ditch near Encanto Parkway in Azusa, where investigators determined she had been sexually assaulted and stabbed in the neck. DA Nathan Hochman said the case, long classified as a cold case, was never abandoned and that the charges come nearly 30 years after Guevara’s family first reported her missing. Jail records show Walton was arrested on Feb. 5 and is being held without bail, with his next court appearance set for March 18 in Los Angeles County. If convicted, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole or the death penalty, though prosecutors say a decision on whether to seek capital punishment will be made later, highlighting both the growing role of forensic DNA in solving decades‑old homicides and the continuing use of California’s death‑penalty statute even as executions remain on hold.