San Francisco police ID suspect in 1999 ex-UNLV swimmer’s death
Almost two decades after a former UNLV swimmer was found stabbed to death in a San Francisco apartment building, police have identified a suspect in his death.
Officers were dispatched at about 7 p.m. on December 9, 1999, to an apartment building in northeast San Francisco, where they found 25-year-old Kameron Sengthavy, a former UNLV swimmer, dead from apparent stab wounds, according to a police statement released Friday.
After police exhausted all leads, the investigation of Sengthavy’s death was assigned to the department’s cold case unit.
Early this year, 19 years after Sengthavy’s death, cold case investigators identified Donovan Ray Lacy, 38, as a suspect in the stabbing.
Investigators also connected Lacy to the shooting death of Thomas Lee, a 60-year-old gas station attendant who was killed in June 2000 in San Francisco.
Lacy, who is serving nine years in Florida for bank robberies he committed there, was returned to Marin County in Northern California to stand trial for several bank robberies in the Bay Area in 2012 and 2013. He was convicted in January 2014 and sentenced to 105 years in prison for the robberies.
He then was moved back to Florida to serve the remainder of his earlier sentence. He likely will be extradited to San Francisco to stand trial for the 1999 and 2000 murders, according to police.
“Upon conclusion of the San Francisco murder trials, Lacy is expected to return to Florida to finish out his nine-year sentence for bank robbery,” the Police Department wrote. “He would then be transported back to Marin County and serve out his 105-year sentence for the 2012 and 2013 bank robbery convictions.”
Even in the event of an arrest, cold cases remain open investigations, police said. Anyone with information about the deaths of Sengthavy or Lee may contact the San Francisco Police Department’s homicide unit at 415-553-9515.
Contact Kimber Laux at klaux@reviewjournal.com. Follow @lauxkimber on Twitter.