Joseph Stephen Holt

Joseph Stephen Holt (November 8, 1947 – April 6, 2014) was an American murderer and suspected serial killer who was posthumously linked via DNA to two murders committed in South Lake Tahoe, California, from 1977 to 1979. Holt, a real estate agent, was never convicted in his lifetime and died without being considered a suspect in 2014. Since his identification in 2019, authorities have been investigating whether he could be responsible for more violent crimes committed in the state. After graduating from the Cupertino High School, he studied political science at UC Santa Barbara and later UC Berkeley, receiving a bachelor's degree. He moved to South Lake Tahoe in 1974, where he soon began a career in real estate, holding down that job up until his death. As a realtor, he frequently traveled between San Jose and South Lake Tahoe, and was regarded as very familiar with the area. He reported the finding to the police, who soon identified the decomposing body inside of it as that of Rainey. From what little forensic evidence could be gathered, it was ascertained that she had been raped and then strangled to death. It was determined that she had been bound, gagged and strangled by her killer, who made no effort to conceal her corpse. Not long after contacting the family members, including one of Holt's biological children who agreed to provide a DNA sample from his father's old toothbrush, authorities were able to conclusively link Holt's DNA to both crime scenes. However, he could not be arrested, as he had died in his South Lake Tahoe home on April 6, 2014, from a heart attack.

After searching through Holt's various belongings, police found a newspaper clipping about an unsolved 1975 shooting in Los Gatos, in which the victim had survived. Queries to the local police department returned a sketch of the suspect in said shooting, which appeared to be a near-perfect match to what Holt looked like at the time. As a result, police have since suspected that he likely has committed other violent crimes centering around the South Lake Tahoe and San Jose area, and are seeking any potential links to unsolved cases that could be linked back to Holt.