80-Year-Old Arrested in Decades-Old Double Murder

Donald Lee Clark, an 80-year-old Stockton resident, was arrested on April 22 in connection with the 1994 killings of Eugene Cates and Lawrence Loehr, two 23-year-old friends whose deaths had gone unsolved for more than three decades. Stockton police and San Joaquin County prosecutors said renewed work on the cold case, including forensic testing and genetic genealogy, led investigators to Clark. Clark has been charged with two counts of murder, according to local reports on his arraignment. He is scheduled to return to court on June 1. ### Who were the two men killed in 1994? Eugene Cates and Lawrence Loehr were found dead on May 23, 1994, at a construction site on the 10000 block of Thornton Road in north Stockton, authorities said. Both men were 23 years old, and local news reports said they were best friends, engaged to be married and studying criminal justice as they prepared for careers in law enforcement. (cslea.com) Lawrence Loehr was working as a security guard at the construction site when the killings occurred, according to Othram, the forensic laboratory that later assisted on the case. Investigators said officers were first sent to the site around 3 a.m. after a report that a person had been assaulted. ### What did investigators say happened at the scene? Stockton police said the original investigation found Cates near a chain-link fence at the construction site, with his body beneath fencing that appeared to have been knocked down by a car. (cslea.com) Authorities later determined that the vehicle used to break through the fence was Cates’ own car, which was found abandoned and burned about 3 miles away roughly two hours later, according to reporting that cited investigators. (othram.com) Robbery was ruled out early in the case because nothing appeared to have been taken from the site, according to that reporting. Even with physical evidence and witness interviews, investigators did not identify a suspect in 1994. ### How did the case move again after so many years? The breakthrough came in 2025, when the San Joaquin County Cold Case Task Force submitted evidence from the original investigation for advanced forensic testing, according to Othram and local reporting. (sfgate.com) Othram said it developed a DNA profile that was then used in a forensic genetic genealogy search, producing new investigative leads. Investigators then identified Clark as a potential contributor of DNA from the crime scene, according to Othram and Forensic Magazine. Authorities from the cold case task force, the California Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force worked together to obtain a reference DNA sample from Clark before his arrest, those reports said. (sfgate.com) ### What happened when Clark was taken into custody? April 22, 2026, is the date authorities said members of the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force arrested Clark in Stockton. He was later booked into the San Joaquin County Jail on two homicide counts, according to law-enforcement accounts and local reporting. April 24, 2026, is when Clark first appeared in a San Joaquin County courtroom, according to ABC10 and The Stockton Record’s reporting as republished elsewhere. (forensicmag.com) ABC10 reported that Clark appeared in a wheelchair while a judge read out two murder counts. ### What comes next in court? (cslea.com) June 1 is the next court date cited in the Patch-derived report and other coverage of the case. San Joaquin County prosecutors have said Clark faces multiple murder charges tied to the deaths of Cates and Loehr. San Joaquin County Superior Court will handle the next public step in the case when Clark returns for that scheduled appearance. (abc10.com) The proceedings are expected to continue in Stockton, where the killings occurred and where investigators announced the arrest. (msn.com)