Thirteen-year-old Michele Matteucci got off a SamTrans bus at Morton Drive and Callan Boulevard with classmates on Nov. 10, 1987, and never made it the rest of the way home. Hours later, her body was found in a backyard on the 100 block of Morton Drive, and the case has never been solved. Nearly 39 years on, California is putting fresh money behind the search for answers.
Michele, an eighth grader at Alta Loma Junior High School, was expected at her family's home on Wakefield Avenue around 3:30 p.m. that day, according to SFGATE. The City of Daly City's own account of the case says she was last seen alive walking home from school at about that time, and that at about 10 p.m. that night her partially clad body turned up in a Morton Drive backyard, according to the City of Daly City. SFGATE's reporting places her discovery at approximately 9:30 p.m. in the backyard of 183 Morton Drive, a detail that differs slightly from the city's stated time. The city says she had been strangled to death and that there appeared to be a sexual motive behind the killing.
A Classmate's Sighting and a Scattered Trail
A classmate reportedly saw Michele walking up Morton Drive before turning back down Callan Boulevard, per SFGATE's account, and other witnesses told investigators they saw her near a bus stop with an unidentified man. Her brother, 16-year-old Marc Matteucci, and friends found her schoolbag stuffed in a drainage passage between houses, with a homework folder bearing her name still inside. Her clarinet was later found on an embankment near Morton Drive, and investigators considered whether her belongings had been thrown from a nearby backyard. Witness accounts conflicted on whether Michele had entered or left the backyard where she was ultimately found, the outlet reported.
Police released a composite drawing of a man believed to be connected to the case: white, 5-foot-7 to 5-foot-10, with brown hair, a mustache, a goatee and a possible scar or mole near his hairline, estimated to be 25 to 30 years old and wearing a dirty green calf-length overcoat, a light-blue brimmed rain hat and brown work boots, according to SFGATE. Investigators followed more than 400 leads within a week of Michele's death and questioned two men early on before ruling them out. Daly City police ultimately made no arrest, even as hundreds of tips poured in.
The Reward and the Renewed Push
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $50,000 reward specifically for information leading to an arrest in Michele's killing, part of a larger $300,000 reward package covering multiple unsolved cases, according to NBC Bay Area. ABC7 News notes that her case remains unsolved and is among those now eligible for that statewide reward effort, as reported by ABC7 News. Daly City police continue to investigate the killing and routinely review cold cases, and investigators evaluate emerging technologies, forensic capabilities and investigative tools for potential new leads, per SFGATE.
Lee Aquila, who handles the department's unsolved cases, declined to discuss whether DNA evidence exists in Michele's case or whether it could identify her killer, but said the department remains hopeful the reward will encourage people with information to come forward. Legal expert Steven Clark told NBC Bay Area that a tip combined with modern DNA analysis could potentially link a suspect to a crime through a relative's DNA. The National Institute of Justice estimates that roughly 20% of cold cases are eventually solved, per the same report from the station.
A Second Daly City Teen's Unsolved Death
Investigators have also considered whether Michele's killing was connected to the death of Yvonne Marie Fruit, a 14-year-old Daly City resident and El Camino High School student who failed to show up for her after-school job at a Serramonte Center Burger King in May 1987. Fruit was found dead near a wooded path by El Camino Real and Old Mission Road in South San Francisco, killed by stabbing, according to SFGATE. No publicly established link between the two killings has been confirmed.
Grief counselors worked with more than 100 children at Michele's school in the aftermath of her death, and her brother Marc described her to SFGATE as bright, academically gifted, talented in dance and music, and loved by family and friends. Daly City police ask anyone with information about her death to call the department at 650-991-8119, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The city's own Unsolved Crimes page lists a different number, (650) 991-8169, for tips to Lieutenant Lee Aquila.
California recorded nearly 928 violent crimes per 100,000 residents in 1987, along with 10.7 homicides per 100,000 residents, according to SFGATE's reporting; statewide violent-crime statistics had fallen by half by 2024 per the California Department of Justice. Nearly four decades later, Michele Matteucci's killing remains an open wound for a city that has never learned who left her in that Morton Drive backyard.
