Antioch man convicted of 1980 murder of 14-year-old girl
Mugshot of Mitchell Bacom. He was convicted of murdering a 14-year-old girl in 1980.
MARTINEZ, Calif. - An Antioch man has been convicted of murdering a 14-year-old girl in 1980, Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton announced Thursday.
Mitchell Lynn Bacom, 67, was convicted of first-degree murder with special circumstances on Tuesday, prosecutors said.
Bacom, who was 27 years old at the time of the murder, was an early suspect in the initial investigation, but the case went cold until 2017 when he was identified as the perpetrator through his DNA profile, prosecutors said.
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Suzanne Bombardier was babysitting her younger cousins when she disappeared from her sister's apartment on June 2, 1980, and her body was recovered a week later from the San Joaquin River. Prosecutors said there was evidence of sexual assault, and Bombardier's cause of death was determined to be a single stab wound to the chest.
Bacom, who had previously been convicted in 1974 of rape and other felony offenses in Mountain View, was on parole at the time of the murder.
He was convicted of sexually assault and related felonies in 1981 and was sentenced to 24 years in state prison.
He will be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, prosecutor said.