A man convicted in a three-decade old cold case involving a kidnapping and sexual assault was given life in prison Monday, the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office said.
Thomas Loguidice, 68, was convicted of the 1994 kidnapping of a 21-year-old woman who worked as a manager of a tuxedo shop in the Oakridge Mall in San Jose.
Shortly before 10 a.m. on Jan. 13, 1994, the woman arrived and prepared to open the store. Loguidice entered the showroom and forced her into the back of the store at knifepoint. He then bound her wrists and tied her to a pipe. Loguidice took some cash from the register and then returned to the victim and sexually assaulted her.
Investigators at the time were unable to identify a suspect in the case and it went cold, according to prosecutors.
In 2022, the DA's cold case unit discovered that DNA collected from the 1994 crime scene matched an offender profile in the Combined DNA Index System, also known as CODIS. Loguidice was in CODIS after being convicted in 2012 of continuous sexual abuse of four children under 13 in San Benito County, prosecutors said.
Due to the statute of limitations, prosecutors were unable to charge Loguidice with the sexual assault, but they were able to charge him with kidnapping.
He is currently serving a 40-year sentence for the San Benito County case.
The victim in the 1994 attack provided a powerful victim impact statement, according to the district attorney's office.
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