SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KNX) — Prosecutors in Sacramento County have filed charges against a suspect accused of killing a woman with autism whose body was found hanging from a tree near a homeless encampment.
Mikilo Morgan Rawls, 37, was charged with murder with special circumstances allegations of kidnapping, rape, and sodomy in the murder of 20-year-old Emma Roark of Rancho Cordova prosecutors said Monday.
“The circumstances of this murder are horrific, and our sympathies go out to Emma Roark’s family,” Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert said in a statement.
Court records indicated that Roark had high-functioning autism, and was not able to perceive certain social cues.
Roark was last seen by her family at around 11:30 a.m. on Jan. 27. Two days later, a man who bought the victim’s cell phone told investigators that Rawls sold him the device. He said Rawls ordered him not to say where he got it, according to the arrest warrant.
Detectives said they identified Rawls as the suspect with evidence processed at the scene of the crime, a secluded area near the American River access point on El Manto Drive — not far from where Roark’s body was found. DNA obtained from Roark’s body also matched a profile of Rawls from an arrest on a separate burglary charge on Feb. 11.
Rawls was described by prosecutors as a transient from the Sacramento County area.
Rawls could be eligible for the death penalty if convicted. No inmate in California has been executed since 2006, however, and Gov. Gavin Newsom has placed a moratorium on them going forward.
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