A: As reported in The Bee, Nick Nathanial "Nate" Morelos in March 1993 was sentenced to 15-years-to-life in prison for the stabbing death of 16-year-old Shawn Cassinelli.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge James L. Long described the July 20, 1991, slaying as a tragedy for all involved.

Long could have sentenced Morelos, who was 17 when the stabbing took place, to the California Youth Authority where he would have remained no longer than his 25th birthday. But the judge opted for a harsher penalty, citing the viciousness of the crime.

In October 1992, Morelos pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Cassinelli, a popular San Juan High School athlete who died of a single stab wound to the stomach.

The incident occurred as Cassinelli was walking along a dark stretch of Old Auburn Road. One of Cassinelli's two companions threw a bottle into the road in front of a passing car.

Morelos, a passenger in the automobile, leaped out and charged the three pedestrians, fatally stabbing Cassinelli.

A: Timothy Darren Armstrong, then 28, was sentenced to four years in prison plus a year in county jail in Sacramento Superior Court on Nov. 6, 1995, for the hit-and-run death of Heather Noel Glodek, according to reports in The Bee.

Armstrong pleaded no contest to the charges of felony hit-and-run, misdemeanor manslaughter and five counts of driving with a suspended license in the death of Glodek, 16, of Davis, on July 22, 1995.

"I am very, very sorry for what's happened," said a tearful Armstrong at the end of the sentencing, The Bee reported. "If I could trade places with her, I would. I am so sorry for what's happened."

Armstrong's license had been suspended because of five previous convictions for drunken driving between 1988 and 1994, but he told authorities he was not drinking and kept driving because he wasn't sure what he hit, The Bee reported. He said he had been sober for about a year.

Glodek was walking hand in hand with her boyfriend to a call box near their disabled vehicle at 9:20 p.m. when a pickup truck hit her from behind on a Highway 99 offramp to Elkhorn Boulevard.

A: Wycoff, now 40, is scheduled to go on trial Sept. 14 in Contra Costa Superior Court on two counts of murder, according to court records and media reports.

He is accused of stabbing the couple to death on Jan. 31, 2006, in their El Cerrito home. The killings took place in the presence of two of the Rogers' three children, according to media reports.

Wycoff, a former Citrus Heights resident, was arrested on Feb. 2, 2006, at a Roseville hospital after staff called police about a man seeking treatment "with suspicious wounds," The Bee reported.

In 2008, the Contra Costa Times newspaper reported that Wycoff told a reporter that "the Rogers were evil and deserved to die. He said he disagreed with their lifestyle, as well as how his sister handled family matters, including the division of their late father's estate."

At a preliminary hearing in 2007, an El Cerrito police officer testified that Wycoff plotted the homicides, the newspaper reported.

Wycoff allegedly told police that he wore a disguise when he broke into the Rogers home. Wycoff told police that he was armed with a knife and a broken wheelbarrow handle, the newspaper reported.

Paul Rogers, a 47-year-old corporate attorney, identified Wycoff as his attacker just before he died, the newspaper reported. Julie Rogers, 47, was a stay-at-home mother and active in El Cerrito politics, the newspaper reported.

A: Harmon, 18 and a former C.K. McClatchy High School student, was convicted in 1951 of the kidnap-murder of San Francisco cab driver Ronald Booth, according to reports in The Bee.

Harmon began serving a life sentence in prison in late March 1951. A jury found Harmon sane on March 3 and convicted him two days later, The Bee reported.

Harmon said he kidnapped and killed Booth "to make someone obey me ... someone jump when I gave an order."

Harmon ran away to San Francisco, where he bought a pistol. He commandeered Booth's cab and ordered him to drive south on Highway 101.

Near Hollister, Harmon ordered Booth from the cab and killed him. He drove the cab to Ventura, where a suspicious waitress turned him into police.

The state Corrections Department was unable to locate Harmon's record in prison.

A: The March 10, 1989, death of Porter, 18, remains unsolved, according to reports in The Bee.

Porter, a passenger in a car being driven south on 29th Street -- between Florin Road and 65th Avenue -- was fatally wounded when shots from handguns and shotguns were fired from another car.

The suspects were described as five black males wearing dark clothing who were traveling in what police described as either a beige or yellow 1976 Oldsmobile Cutlass or a 1976 Buick Regal.

A: Mains, 61, was found competent to stand trial for murder on June 4. His trial is scheduled for Jan. 19, 2010, according to Sacramento Superior Court records.

Mains is accused of shooing his wife to death in a guest house behind a residence in Citrus Heights, according to report in The Bee.

Citrus Heights police found Pamela Wales, 61, after a man telephoned them to say he had gotten a call from a friend who said he had shot his wife.

When police arrived at the home near Larkspur Avenue and Jana Marie Court, they made contact with Mains. After a few minutes, he came outside and was taken into custody without incident, police said.

When he was booked into the jail, Mains told authorities he has gone by the aliases "Josie Wales" and "Outlaw Josie Wales."

A: John M. Thompson was killed in a gunbattle with Sacramento Police Department officers on July 23, 1970, according to reports in The Bee.

Thompson, 70, killed neighbor Ralph Jesse Adams, 37, as he went to Thompson's home on Ford Road in their North Sacramento neighborhood, police and witnesses told The Bee.

Thompson also wounded two police officers responding to the shooting of Adams, investigators said. One of the officers was wounded in the thumb and shoulder. The other officers suffered cuts from flying windshield glass. Both officers recovered and returned to duty.

Officers shot and killed Thompson.

Before the shooting, a witness said youths rode a dune buggy near Thompson as he walked home from a market. As the youths rode the dune buggy near Thompson, he broke the vehicle's windshield with a board, the witness said.

One of the youths allegedly was Adams' son. Adams also owned the dune buggy, a witness told The Bee.

Thompson also may have been provoked by earlier harassment by some youths in the neighborhood, Thompson's wife told The Bee.

A: Roloff, the 19-year-old son of a motorcycle lobbyist, apparently is in prison. He was sentenced April 22, 1992, to 29 years to life in prison for the June 12, 1991, murder of his father, according to reports in The Bee.

Steven Ray Roloff had been convicted of first-degree murder by a Sacramento Superior Court jury.

According to testimony at the trial, young Roloff shot his father, Ronald R. Roloff, in the face during a confrontation at his father's home in North Highlands. Steven, who had been banned from his father's home, and an accomplice, Dana Calvo, had broken into the home.

Superior Court Judge Steven H. Rodda ordered that the teenage killer be housed at the California Youth Authority until his 25th birthday. The young man had expressed a fear of going to state prison because of his father's connections with motorcycle gangs.

Ronald Roloff served as lobbyist for the Modified Motorcycle Association for 19 years.

Calvo pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison on May 6, 1992.

A: Rachelle Ramirez Ruiz, the driver of the vehicle that hit Kleven’s car, pleaded no contest on June 27, 2008, to one misdemeanor count of vehicular manslaughter without gross negligence, according to Sacramento Superior Court records.

She was sentenced to 294 days of detention other than in jail under an alternative sentencing program, court records indicate. However, records show that on Dec. 29, 2008, her probation was revoked and she was ordered to serve 50 days “straight time.”

A California Highway Patrol accident investigator said Ruiz’ vehicle crossed out of her lane and hit Kleven's vehicle head-on. She was determined to be at fault, he said.

Four people involved in the two-vehicle crash died.

Kleven, 56, was driving alone in his 1964 Volvo on Highway 16 east of Rancho Murrieta about 3 p.m. when a 1997 Volvo carrying four people struck his vehicle, according to the CHP.

Also killed were Cheri Ruiz, 37, of San Rafael, Ruby Menor, 43, and Rufina Menor, 86, both of Sacramento.

A Bee obituary on Kleven said the bass player was one of the city's most in-demand musicians.

A: According to authorities, a DNA match 17 years after the crime helped identify who killed Marjorie Williams on July 29, 1988.

As reported in The Bee, here was the scenario:

The slaying of Williams, 22, a school district secretary and a Cosumnes River College student, baffled detectives.

The night before, Williams left her apartment with her 2 1/2-year-old daughter to visit a friend in Hood. Several people remained drinking and hanging out in her living room.

When Williams and her daughter returned at 3 a.m. Friday, Williams was sexually assaulted and stabbed multiple times.

A neighbor heard a window breaking after 4 a.m. and called police. At 6:30 a.m., officers found the daughter near her mother.

Sacramento homicide detective Pete Willover, who has retired from the department, kept regular tabs on the case's progress.

One lead stood out in the case file, Willover said. People who had been in the apartment that night said an object was not there when they left: a soda cup found next to the body.

Fingerprints on the cup were traced to Lewis Coon, 29, who had been in the apartment that night. Coon told detectives in 1988 that he left with the others, drunk, and slept in a park across the street.

Detectives took a sample of Coon's blood after the homicide, planning to analyze his blood type to rule him in or out as a suspect.

In 2005, the blood was the key to solving the crime. Willover said the blood DNA was compared to the semen gathered from the victim. It was a match.

Willover said the District Attorney's Office reviewed the case and determined that a warrant for murder would have been issued for Coon if he were still alive. In 1993, Coon was struck and killed while walking along Interstate 80 in Fairfield.

A: A jury found Granado guilty on Dec. 11, 2000, of murdering Nicholas Bateman, according to Sacramento Superior Court records.

Granado was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

Granado, then 36, stabbed to death Nicholas Bateman, 22, on April 3, 2000. The two men were drinking with others in a home in the 3700 block of Dayton Street in Del Paso Heights, according to reports in The Bee.

They got into an argument. Granado then stabbed Bateman several times, injuring him fatally, police said.

A: Kolmetz was sentenced to death on May 19, 1989, for the 1986 murders of Shelly Ann Vaughn and her 5-month-old daughter, Xenia, according to reports in The Bee.

At his trial, a letter from a doctor stated that the AIDS-afflicted Kolmetz had a life expectancy of five years.

A spokeswoman for the California Corrections Department said Kolmitz died in prison on Aug. 16, 1996.

The murders of Shelly, 31, and 5-month-old Xenia Vaughn were particularly brutal, and, though Kolmetz vehemently denied it, the jury decided the baby girl was sexually assaulted, The Bee reported.

Shelly Vaughn's body was found strangled in the apartment she was sharing with Kolmetz, who was asleep on a couch when officers arrived to investigate a report that a man had been seen dragging a body outside a North Highlands apartment complex.

Kolmetz, a 30-year-old transsexual, was wearing red lipstick and eye makeup, and there were two women's wigs strewn on the living room floor along with pornographic magazines and a baby's bottle, disposable diaper and bassinet.

Some time later, a sheriff's deputy was searching a garbage container some 50 yards north of the apartment and found the body of Xenia Vaughn in a plastic garbage bag.

She had been beaten to death, and there were signs of sexual molestation.

According to Kolmetz's pre-sentence report, Shelly Vaughn and Kolmetz had been involved in a domestic dispute the evening before the bodies were found.

The two had lived together in the North Highlands apartment for several months prior to the killings.

In addition to the death sentence imposed for the murders, Ridgeway sentenced Kolmetz to 23 years in state prison for rape and molestation, with great bodily injury, of Xenia.