After 44 years, a 1975 gay homicide has been considered solved and a New York man is awaiting extradition to San Diego on a murder charge.
The slaying of 28-year-old Alvaro Marquez Espeleta has been investigated for decades, but new technology in DNA and fingerprint analysis have led to identification of a suspect, Dennis James Lepage, now 63, who has been charged with murder in San Diego Superior Court.
Espeleta was a dental technician in the Navy and when he didn’t show up for work, two co-workers went to his home in the 3200 block of Reynard Way on Dec. 31, 1975.
They discovered Espeleta’s nude body on his bed at 9 a.m. with a lot of blood covering his head and chest. They called San Diego Police and investigators saved items in the apartment that links the slaying to Lepage, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
Lepage was 18 years old at the time and was stationed here in the Navy. He was later discharged from the Navy on a “bad conduct” charge following a conviction in a special court martial, the affidavit says.
Lepage was arrested Jan. 24 in Troy, New York, and was transported to an Albany County detention facility on a no bail warrant signed by San Diego Superior Court Judge Runston Maino.
Lepage, using a cane, appeared Feb. 3 in Rensselaer County Court in New York. Since then, Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed an extradition warrant which is a legal demand that allows a prisoner be returned to the state where he faces charges.
The courts here are closed until April 6 because of the coronavirus and his extradition could take several more months.
Espeleta was strangled and suffered blunt force trauma. He did not smoke, but cigarette butts found in the apartment were saved along with a bloody towel in the bathroom that reportedly contained Lepage’s blood, according to the court affidavit.
A palm print was found in the bathroom and police officer Lori Adams submitted a lab request for latent print analysis on Aug. 15, 2019 to have the prints re-examined and compared. A fingerprint examiner identified Lepage as the source of palm print impressions on the inside bathroom door and sink.
Lepage’s fingerprint was also found on a Miller beer bottle on top of a trash can in the kitchen. The DNA from a bloody bathroom towel later matched Lepage’s DNA, according to the affidavit.
The palm and fingerprints were analyzed many times, but no matches were found. They were placed in the Automated Latent Print System in 1989.
However, Lepage was arrested in 2010 on a misdemeanor restraining order violation in Massachusetts in which his prints were taken and eventually led to a match, according to court documents.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service again looked at the case in 2019, and they assigned a team to conduct surveillance on Lepage after the DNA and fingerprints were matched to him.
The NCIS team obtained items in the trash that were discarded by Lepage’s roommate on Sept. 25, 2019. They included a coffee cup and a Diet Canada Dry bottle, and that was the same DNA profile found on items in Espeleta’s apartment, the affidavit says.
Lepage enlisted in the Navy at age 17 and is originally from Springfield, Massachusetts. He has been married and divorced three times, and has five daughters and one son.
Espeleta was described as a quiet person who never talked about women. An acquaintance said he last saw Espeleta with a white male near the Greyhound bus depot downtown, according to San Diego Crime Stoppers, who put his photo on a flyer and asked for the public’s help in solving the murder.
Another Navy man told police he last saw Espeleta coming out of an arcade next to a jewelry store on the corner of Broadway and Front Street with a white male who was between 20-25 years old.
All of the San Diego Police officers who worked on the case are now deceased, but they left detailed reports about witnesses they interviewed.
Other agencies that assisted in the investigation were the sheriff’s departments in San Diego and Albany County, New York State Police, New York State Safe Streets Task Force, and the DA’s office.
