Story on the unsolved case of a 1980 slaying of a Fresno State student

An empty dirt lot now sits at the southwest corner of Chestnut and Shaw avenues, without the slightest hint of what happened there more than 22 years ago.

The dirt now rests where a Round Table Pizza restaurant once stood. The restaurant closed a few years back, and in the meantime it deteriorated into an eyesore with broken windows and graffiti. A new restaurant, The Dog House, will soon be built on the site.

But on Dec. 2, 1980, the building housed a Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. At the close of business at around 11:30 that night, a Shakey’s employee tried to open a door, but the door felt as though someone was holding it shut. That someone turned out to be Fresno State student Krista Ann Hambrock, slumped on the ground clinging to her last shreds of life.

Hambrock was pronounced dead 40 minutes later at St. Agnes Medical Center, just more than two weeks away from her 21^st birthday. She had suffered a single stab would to the upper left side of her abdomen, a wound which included a cut through the spleen, liver and other vital organs.

According to reports in The Fresno Bee and The Collegian, Hambrock, a business major who was a resident of Baker Hall, went for an evening walk because she was depressed after a poor performance on a test. She left around 10:30 p.m. and said she would return in a few minutes.

An acquaintance saw her walking down Shaw towards Maple at 10:40 p.m. He warned her that she shouldn’t be out alone at night.

Clues to what happened in the 50 minutes between then and the discovery of Hambrock’s body at Shakey’s have eluded the Fresno Police Department for more than two decades.

According to the Dec. 4 edition of The Collegian, three people were in a parking lot near Maple and Shaw avenues trying to repair a car when they heard screams coming from behind the Joyal Administration building at about five minutes to 11 p.m. They heard more screams about 30 seconds later, and then silence. But no one knows who was screaming.

The Mar. 22, 1987 edition of The Fresno Bee reports that someone living in an upstairs apartment near the pizza parlor heard screams shortly before 11:30 that night. The resident looked out his window and saw a person with long hair stagger from a car to the side of the restaurant.

But he lost sight of the person, and the only description of the car he could offer was that it was large and light-colored.

Also, a dorm resident said he went to the Jack in the Box restaurant across the street from Shakey’s at around 11 p.m. when he heard a single cry for help. He looked but couldn’t see anything in the darkness.

Not only have detectives never been able to pinpoint an exact time and location she was stabbed, they also could never find a motive.

An autopsy revealed Hambrock was not sexually assaulted, and she was fully clothed when her body was found. Fresno Police also believe that she wasn’t robbed.

The case has been in the Fresno Police Department’s “inactive” file since 1985, after more than 90 leads turned up nothing.

* * *

In 1980, there were two police officers on patrol per shift on the Fresno State campus.

In 2003, there are still two police officers on patrol per shift, Fresno State Police Chief Michael Dunlap said.

But David Moll, campus director of public safety, said that there’s more to the campus crime rate than the number of officers on patrol.

“How many officers would it take,” he said, “to keep someone safe?”

Moll also said the crime rate on campus is exceptionally low, especially when compared to the community at large.

“By all calculations, we’ve got a great track record,” he said.

The numbers back him up.

According to the campus police department’s crime statistics, there were three robberies, seven aggravated assaults and 49 automobile thefts reported in all of 2001. For comparison, according to the Fresno Police Department’s web site, there were 836 robberies reported citywide in the first eight months of 2001, 1,688 aggravated assaults and 4,271 vehicle thefts.

The difference is due to a variety of reasons.

For one thing, just about everyone who is on campus is there for a reason, Dunlap said, either as a student, a professor or even a delivery person. The university can also step into certain situations before they result in a crime, something the city can’t do.

The high visibility of the police officers on patrol, the campus camera system and the smaller size of the community also contribute. Plus, officers patrol on foot and on bicycles, letting them get into places they couldn’t get to with a car.

“Criminals don’t feel the campus is ‘easy pickings,’” Moll said.

Dunlap said that measures the police department has taken, such as security cameras, the escort service and the center in the USU Pavilion, have worked well.

But both Dunlap and Moll said they can’t stress personal responsibility enough.

“What should I be doing,” Moll said, “and what shouldn’t I be doing?”

Dunlap said a problem is students not thinking about their safety; for example, students sometimes prop open an outside door in the dorms, defeating the first line of defense and leaving a crack for criminal “vermin” to slip through.

Moll and Dunlap said taking such measures as not walking alone after class, sticking to lit pathways, and utilizing the emergency phones located around campus can help students keep safe.

“Don’t hesitate to use that phone,” Moll said.

He also said not to wait for the situation to escalate before using the phone; if you feel like you’re being followed, or just don’t feel right about something, don’t hesitate.

* * *

Information on Hambrock’s murder is practically non-existent in the campus police department’s files. That’s partly because of how long ago the murder was, but mainly because her body was found off campus.

In 1980, campus crime reporting stopped at the campus boundaries. That changed with the passage of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act, better known as the Clery Act. The law was originally signed in 1990 and has been amended several times since.

The Clery Act, in a nutshell, requires public access to three years’ worth of crime statistics. The idea is to let parents and students coming to a university know what they’re getting into.

Under the Clery Act, the campus crime report also has to include property surrounding the campus. So if the murder happened today, it would show up in campus crime statistics, whereas it didn’t in 1980.