Galt Police identify suspect in 1988 cold case murder, sexual assault investigation
Photos: Galt PD
Galt Police have announced the identification of a primary suspect in a cold case sexual assault and murder investigation.
Lucille Hultgren
DNA evidence has identified Terry Leroy Bramble as the suspect in the May 23, 1988, sexual assault and murder of 79-year-old Lucille Hultgren.
Hultgren was found dead at her home on the 500 block of Poplar Street by friends who’d come to check on her after she hadn’t turned up for church.
The coroner concluded that she had died as a result of stab wounds to her chest and strangulation, and had been dead for two to five days before she was found. There’d been no signs of forced entry to the home, police said.
Bramble, a known transient of the Galt area who was 32 years old at the time, reportedly died of natural causes in October 2011. However, his DNA has been on file since 1992 due to a sexual assault conviction in San Joaquin County.
In January 2022, Sacramento County investigators re-examined the evidence in the Hultgren case, conclusively identifying Bramble as the assailant via DNA match.
