The man whom Alameda County investigators identified 15 years ago as the main suspect in an unsolved 1994 killing died in an Oregon prison on Monday.
Sebastian Alexander Shaw, 53, died of to-be-determined causes in the Oregon State Penitentiary, prison officials told Oregon Live and Bay Area News Group. Investigators in 2006 pegged Shaw as the prime suspect in the fatal 1994 stabbing of Castro Valley teen Jenny Lin. Shaw was never arrested for Lin's death, nor did Alameda County prosecutors charge him.
Shaw was serving three life sentences at the time of his death: One for the 1991 killing of a quadriplegic man, another for killing a couple in 1992 and a third for raping an 18-year-old woman in 1995. He told prosecutors and police he had killed as many as 12 other people, including one in California.
In August 1994, Shaw was arrested in Portland, Oregon. Police found him in a car that was reported stolen in San Ramon within days of Lin's death on May 27. Lin, 14 and an eighth-grade student at Canyon Middle School, was found by her father, dead and naked in the family's upstairs bathroom. An autopsy determined she was stabbed to death after removing her clothes. Investigators believed Shaw intended to sexually assault her before he was scared off.
Two rifles, a handgun, a ski mask, surgical gloves, duct tape, knives, binoculars and plastic handcuffs were in Shaw’s car at the time of his 1994 arrest. He wasn't charged with possession of stolen property in Portland, and Contra Costa County prosecutors opted not to extradite him for car theft.
Shaw was arrested again in 1998, this time after DNA evidence linked him to the couple’s deaths and the 18-year-old woman’s rape. He pleaded guilty before his trial and later asked for a deal from prosecutors in which he’d confess to other crimes in order to avoid the death penalty. Shaw, ultimately, was sentenced to life in prison for his most recent conviction in 2006.
Lin’s killing remains unsolved. Her parents, John and Mei-Lian Lin, started a foundation in her name that aims to promote children’s safety and music education. Jenny Lin played viola in middle school, joining the Castro Valley Chamber Orchestra while in the eighth grade.
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