Monterey County cold case murder solved after 32 years, but suspect died in 2021

SALINAS – A cold case murder more than three decades old has been solved according to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office, but the suspect will never be charged because he died before DNA testing confirmed evidence found under the victim’s fingernails matched his.

On Jan. 3, 1991, Vicki Johnson, a 34-year-old mother of three from Seaside, was found dead in Sabado Park at Darwin Street and H Place in Seaside.

Johnson had been strangled, asphyxiated, and her body had been set on fire, according to a press release from the District Attorney’s Office. The physical evidence indicated that Johnson had struggled with her killer. No eyewitnesses to the crime could be located, and no significant suspects were developed.

No arrests were made in the initial investigation of Johnson’s murder and the case remained unsolved for more than 32 years.

In 2021, the Johnson murder case was reopened when investigators with the DA’s Cold Case Task Force worked together with the Seaside Police Department to submit items of evidence from the case for DNA testing.

This past month, California Department of Justice Crime Laboratory criminalists matched DNA found beneath Johnson’s fingernails to Frank Lewis McClure who was 46 at the time of Johnson’s murder.

McClure’s DNA profile was in the Combined DNA Index System database as a result of a previous felony conviction for assault with a deadly weapon, according to the release. McClure had not been a suspect in the original investigation.

The motive for Johnson’s murder remains unknown as McClure died in 2021 at the age of 77.

The Monterey County District Attorney’s Office Cold Case Task Force was established in 2020 to investigate, solve and prosecute cold-case homicides in Monterey County.

Anyone who has additional information about Frank Lewis McClure or the homicide of Vicki Johnson is encouraged to contact the Seaside Police Department.