A Florida man has been convicted by a San Bernardino County jury for the murder of a truck driver at an Ontario truck stop 19 years ago.
Just four days after Christmas in 1994, truck driver Buster Shackleton was robbed and murder while sitting in the cab of his truck at the Beacon Truck Stop on East Inland Empire Boulevard in Ontario, California.
For nearly twenty years, Shackleton’s murder walked free.
Several years later, investigators decided to take a second look at the cold case. Thanks to advances in technology, investigators were able to use forensic evidence from the 1994 crime scene. Detectives compared the crime scene evidence to evidence stored in the national crime database, and a match was made.
The evidence linked the murder to Demus Lushan Peterson, 40, who was convicted of drug trafficking. Detectives used fingerprints taken from Peterson during his arrest. Peterson’s prints matched those found at the scene.
In June of 2012, an arrest for the murder of Buster Shackleton was finally made.
Last week, a jury found Peterson guilty of first-degree murder involving a firearm. He will be sentenced in December.
“The murder charge carries a mandatory 15 years to life penalty on conviction. The gun charge can add another 25 years to life to the original charge,” Southern California Defense Blog reported.