Editor's note: Video originally aired in December 2018 after the victim's car was recovered in California.
The suspect in a Camano Island homicide was found deceased in a California river and identified as Jacob Gonzales.
The 33-year-old man was suspected of killing and decapitating his girlfriend, 26-year-old Katherine Cunningham, at a rural bunker-type home they shared on Camano Island. Investigators believe she was killed in mid-February 2018, and that the suspect fled the state with her vehicle.
The victim's vehicle was found abandoned on I-5 near Yreka, California on February 16, 2018. Gonzales was charged with murder after investigators recovered a samurai sword with DNA evidence linked to the homicide.
The body of a man was recovered from a river in Yuba City, California on April 7, 2018. Tattoos and DNA samples led to the body being positively identified as Gonzales on April 16, 2019.
The Island County Sheriff's Office released the following statement:
"The Island County Sheriff's Office would like to thank the Snohomish County Violent Offender Task Force, the US Marshals Office, the California Highway Patrol, the Redding Police Department, the Los Baños Police Department, the Merced County Sheriff's Office and all of the other agencies and citizens that provided information that helped in this investigation. We would also like to thank Katherine's family for their patience and their tireless efforts to keep Katherine in the public's thoughts."
