Suspect in two cold-case killings identified as man who died by suicide in 1999

California authorities have identified the suspect in two different cold-case murders as a man who died by suicide more than 20 years ago.

Reuben Smith fatally shot himself in Las Vegas one year after his 1998 arrest on allegations that he sexually assaulted and tried to kill a woman. The victim, believed to be at least his third, fought back and was able to escape, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. Smith was 39 years old at the time.

The first killing unfolded in 1987, when 23-year-old Shannon Rose Lloyd was found dead in the bedroom of a home she’d been renting in Orange Grove County. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death, according to the district attorney. Renee Cuevas, the second victim, was found dead along a roadside near a now-closed U.S. Marine base on Feb. 19, 1989.

In 2003, investigators linked the cases through DNA evidence discovered at both crime scenes but were unable to identify a suspect. They did not get a break in the case until 2021, when an investigative team with the Orange County District Attorney’s Office were able to use genetic genealogy to identify Cuevas as a possible suspect.

He had lived in Orange County in the ‘80s, when the killings happened, prior to moving to Nevada.

“The loved ones of Renee Cuevas and Shannon Lloyd have the answers to the question they have been asking for more than three decades,” Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement.

“The justice that every victim deserves was hidden away in DNA, but with advances in IGG technology combined with the relentless dedication of generations of detectives and the talented prosecutors and forensic scientists at the District Attorney’s Office, we now know who killed Renee and Shannon.”

Spitzer added: “Justice does not have an expiration date.”