SPOKANE, Wash. – The Spokane Police Department has arrested a former Pasco Police Officer in connection to a murder that happened in 1986.
Spokane Police Major Crimes detectives took Richard J. Aguirre, 51, into custody after a court hearing in Tri-Cities Tuesday morning. He will be booked into Spokane County Jail on the charge of 1st Degree Murder.
Police identified Aguirre as a suspect in May through a DNA profile match.
Ruby Doss, 27, was found strangled near the intersection of N. Fiske and E. Ferry in Spokane in 1986. Police collected DNA samples from the murder scene, but did not get a match until recently. One piece of DNA they collected off Ruby Doss belonged to Aguirre.
The recent match came when investigators were looking into an ongoing rape case in Franklin county. They matched the DNA they collected from Aguirre in the Doss investigation to the Franklin County case.
Recent court documents outline investigator's newest timeline for the crime. Detectives believe that Aguirre and Doss got into a fight after a sexual encounter on the night of the murder. They say Doss pulled a knife on Aguirre and tried to run away. They believe Aguirre caught her and hit her twice on the back of the head. Once she was unconscious, detectives said he strangled her.
Police said Aguirre lived in Spokane at the time the murdered was committed. He was in the Air Force stationed at Fairchild.
"At the time that this occurred he was not a Pasco Police Officer," said Lt. Steven Wohl of the Spokane Police Department.
He joined the police department in 1988 and worked as an officer until he retired in November of 2014.
A friend of Aguirre told police that after a night of drinking Aguirre said he "hit a woman in the head and choked her."
Aguirre was officially charged with rape in Franklin County, which occurred in the Tri-Cities area in 2014. He was placed on administrative leave from the Pasco Police Department and recently resigned.
Doctors said Aguirre told his sisters that he remembers having sex with a woman during the time of the murder but didn't know if she was a prostitute.
"Spokane Detectives still continue to review cold cases for new leads and evidence, so these perpetrators are held accountable for their crimes," said Assistant Chief Selby Smith. "Because of the diligent work of multiple detectives and agencies over the last 30 years, we were able to present this case to prosecutors and help those affected by this tragedy."
Investigators are still asking women who may have been assaulted by Aguirre or anyone with information related to the Doss homicide to contact Spokane Police Department Major Crimes Detectives at 509-622-5849.
