Updated at 3:25 p.m. April 26, 2016
A man already in prison for an unrelated conviction pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a murder charge for allegedly gunning down a woman in a parking garage near Horton Plaza more than two decades ago.
James Issac Blackmon, who was ordered held without bail, is charged in the shooting death of 46-year-old Sumei Wei Chen. The 42-year-old defendant faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted, said Deputy District Attorney Valerie Summers.
The victim’s body was found in the driver’s seat of her white Cadillac in an underground parkade in the 600 block of Third Avenue on Oct. 27, 1993.
Homicide detectives “worked hard to solve the case, but the murder went unsolved and turned into a cold case,” said San Diego police Lt. Manny Del Toro.
Nearly 20 years after the victim was killed, police and investigators with the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office “received new information to reactivate the investigation” and eventually identified Blackmon as Chen’s alleged killer, the lieutenant said.
Del Toro did not disclose the nature of the evidence that allegedly implicates the suspect in the cold-case homicide.
Blackmon will be back in court May 3 for a status conference and May 9 for a preliminary hearing.
— City News Service
