Jeff Maiorca, 53, has been charged in California with the murder of his ex-wife, Jill Maiorca, whose remains were discovered in a crawlspace beneath a home in 2020 – about two decades after she went missing, according to investigators.
Jill Maiorca was 29 when she was killed, authorities said, in what could be one of the latest US cases solved with modern DNA techniques. Her disappearance was reported in the southern California city of Big Bear Lake in 2007, according to a statement from the San Bernardino county sheriff’s department.
Discovery of remains in 2020
The path to finding Jill Maiorca began in late October 2020, when San Bernardino sheriff’s deputies received a call to investigate “a suspicious discovery in the crawlspace under [a] residence” in Big Bear Lake. Deputies and members of the Big Bear fire department ultimately located human remains in that crawlspace.
Although the remains couldn’t immediately be identified, an autopsy determined the manner of death was homicide, the sheriff’s office statement said. The agency said its cold homicide case team in 2023 then submitted the unidentified remains for additional investigative DNA analysis.
DNA identification and charges
Such analysis determined the remains were those of Jill Maiorca, according to the sheriff’s office. The agency also said its investigators had come to consider Jeff Maiorca – who had been Jill’s husband and had filed to divorce her in 2004, court records showed – as a suspect.
Citing unspecified evidence, the sheriff’s office asserted that Jill Maiorca had been murdered in November 2006. Her remains were then concealed – “without the homeowner’s knowledge” – beneath the residence where they were later discovered, the sheriff’s office said, without elaborating on the hiding.
Arrest and court proceedings
Business records reviewed by the Guardian link Jeff Maiorca to a heating, ventilation and air conditioning company. Other records showed his divorce from Jill Maiorca was classified as one involving children.
The San Bernardino sheriff’s office said it arrested Maiorca on Monday. He was formally charged with murder as well as with the use of a deadly weapon, and he had an initial hearing on Wednesday in San Bernardino county superior court, as NBC News first reported.
Jeff Maiorca remained in custody on Saturday at the High Desert jail in Adelanto, California, records indicated. Multiple media outlets reported that he was being held there without bail, and he was tentatively scheduled to appear in court again on 12 October.
