Crime & Safety
CBS TV Series to Feature Local Murder Case in Season Premiere
For "48 Hours'" premiere, they will feature the UC Davis "Sweetheart Murders" case from 1980.
A local 1980s murder case will be the topic of CBS' TV show "48 Hours" season premier Sept. 28.
The case, known as the UC Davis "Sweetheart Murders," involved the kidnapping and killing of 18-year-old UC Davis students in 1980. Thanks to advancements in DNA forensics, Richard Hirschfield was arrested in 2004.
The show premiers at 9 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28 on CBS and will feature interviews with family members, crime scenes and trial proceedings footage, according to a Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office press release.
“The wheels of justice turn slowly but I’ve never covered a story quite like this,” Correspondent Troy Roberts said in a release. “48 Hours first started working on this cold case eight years ago and we couldn’t let it go.”
In the case, victims John Riggins and Sabrina Gonsalves were kidnapped Dec. 20, 1980 after ushering at a UC Davis 'Nutcracker' performance, the Davis Enterprise reported. On Dec. 22, 1980, their bodies were found in Rancho Cordova with their "throats slashed and heads wrapped in duct tape," according to the Enterprise.
The case remained an unsolved mystery and was dismissed until "a DNA hit led to the identification of Richard Hirschfield and he was arrested for the murders in 2004. In November 2011, a jury convicted Hirschfield of the murders and he was sentenced to death in January 2013," according to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office.
You can watch a preview of the premier here.
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