Lewis Randolph “Randy” Williamson has been named as the probable killer of Esther Gonzalez more than 45 years after her body was found.

A man who passed a polygraph test in the 1979 slaying of a 17-year-old girl in California has now been identified as her alleged killer.

On Wednesday, November 20, the Riverside County District Attorney’s (DA) Office confirmed in a release that Lewis Randolph “Randy” Williamson was identified as the rapist and killer of teenager Esther Gonzalez more than 45 years after her body was found dumped in a snowbank off Highway 243 near Banning on February 10, 1979. She was killed the previous day, per release.

“Authorities have determined that she was raped and beaten to death,” the DA’s office said in the statement, adding that “forensic genealogy” helped them confirm the suspect’s identification decades after the murder.

The release said the victim was killed while “walking from her parents’ house in Beaumont to her sister’s house in Banning.”

“Esther’s body was found after an unidentified man, described by deputies as argumentative, called the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department in Banning to report finding a body, saying he did not know if it was male or female,” they said the authorities.

“Five days later, sheriff’s investigators were able to identify the appellant as Lewis Randolph ‘Randy’ Williamson and asked him to take a polygraph.

Over the years, investigators continued to work on the case and “eventually uploaded a sample of semen from the crime scene into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS),” the DA’s office said.

“In 2023, members of the assassination team sent various evidence to Othram, Inc. of Texas, initiating a forensic genetic genealogy investigation in hopes of developing additional leads,” authorities continued in the statement.

“Earlier this year, a crime analyst assigned to the cold case team determined that although Williamson was apparently cleared by polygraph in 1979, he was never cleared by DNA because the technology had not yet been developed,” he added. the prosecutor’s office.

Williamson died in 2014 and a blood sample was taken during the autopsy.

“With the assistance of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, the sample was sent to the California Department of Justice (DOJ). The DOJ recently confirmed that Williamson’s DNA matched the DNA recovered from Esther’s body,” the statement concluded.

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The investigation is ongoing and the Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Squad now looking for information from anyone who knew the suspect.

The Riverside County Regional Cold Case Homicide Squad did not immediately respond when contacted by PEOPLE for further updates.