The Solved Rape & Murder of Ollie Jeanne Elizabeth George, February 1976

At about 5:30pm on Monday, February 23, 1976, in Sacramento County, 19-year-old Ollie George called her mother to say the car she borrowed from her brother wouldn't start. Ollie was a student at American River College at the time. She had driven the car to a shopping center in Sacramento to buy some nylons. An employee at a nearby McDonald's reportedly saw Ollie some time after he started his shift at 5pm.

Photo from FindAGrave.

A bit after 5:30pm, Ollie's sister, Laurenda, and her brother's girlfriend, Beata, went to go meet Ollie, but she wasn't there. The car was unlocked and the keys were in the ignition. Inside the vehicle were grocery items, nylons, her purse, and a partially eaten McDonald's burger.

Witnesses reported seeing Ollie in the driver's seat of a blue car with the hood open, and a Black man working on the engine. One witness reported that they initially thought the man working on the engine was white, but then realized that he was Black.

On February 25th, Ollie's body was found in an unincorporated area of the county. She had been brutally raped and drowned in mud. 

In July 2002, DNA from the scene was matched to a man named Dennis Louis Nelson. At the time, Nelson was a convicted rapist who was scheduled to be released from Folsom State Prison in August of that year. Nelson was charged and convicted of Ollie's murder. He was sentenced to life in prison. 

Nelson had been questioned in connection to the murder shortly after it occurred because a witness who had seen Ollie at the shopping center reported that Nelson's car matched one seen at the scene. He was twenty years old when he committed the crime.

Sources

People v. Nelson (2008) 

2002 SF Gate article 

2008 LA Times article

FindAGrave

Note: I found out about this case from a Zodiac forum or something similar, but I cannot find it now. However, this post is still tagged as "Link."