California Prison Inmate Identified as Suspect in Solano County Cold Case Murder
Above: Herman Lee Hobbs file photo | Solano County Sheriff’s Office
The Solano County Sheriff’s Office has announced the arrest of a suspect in the murder of Holly Ann Campiglia, who was found dead in a cornfield in unincorporated Dixon in August 1980.
Holly Ann Campiglia
In a press release dated February 27, the Sheriff’s Office identified the suspected killer as 76-year-old Herman Lee Hobbs, who is already serving a significant prison sentence for a separate murder in 1975.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, the breakthrough came after one of the office’s evidence technicians reviewed the cold case in late 2021 and found that male DNA was present on some of the original evidence. Further testing revealed that the DNA belonged to Hobbs, prompting detectives to obtain a warrant to collect new DNA from him for a direct comparison. This comparison returned a match.
A Solano County Superior Court judge issued an arrest warrant for Hobbs, along with a removal order to transfer him from state prison to Solano County jail to face new charges for the murder of Campiglia. The charges include an enhancement for the use of a gun.
Detectives are now working with other Northern California agencies to potentially identify and/or solve additional cases that may be linked to Hobbs, the Sheriff’s Office said.
The victim was initially listed as Jane Doe for more than ten years, until the Coroner’s Office was contacted by the National Missing Persons Unit in 1992. At this point, authorities were able to identify the victim as Campiglia, a 21-year-old from New Jersey.
The original deputy to investigate the case, Deputy Jose “Joe” Cisneros, was killed in the line of duty in 1985, the Sheriff’s Office said.
This is the second arrest involving a cold case homicide in Solano County in the past seven months, following the arrest of James Gary in July 2022 as a suspect in the 1996 murder of Winifred Douglas. Gary is still awaiting court proceedings.
Despite the arrest, the case remains under active investigation, and anyone with information relating to the homicide from 1980 is urged to contact Solano Sheriff Investigations at 707-784-7050.
