Jeff Maiorca charged with 2006 murder after DNA identifies ex-wife's remains

Remains found in crawlspace in 2020, identified through cold-case DNA in 2023

A 53-year-old California man has been charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Jill Maiorca, whose remains were discovered hidden beneath a Big Bear Lake residence in 2020 but not identified as hers until 2023, the San Bernardino County sheriff’s department said.

Jeff Maiorca was arrested Monday and faces a murder charge along with a charge of use of a deadly weapon, the sheriff’s office said in a statement. He had an initial hearing Wednesday in San Bernardino County Superior Court, as NBC News first reported.

Jill Maiorca’s disappearance was reported in the southern California city of Big Bear Lake in 2007, the sheriff’s office said. She was 29 at the time of her death.

The path to identifying her remains began in late October 2020, when sheriff’s deputies received a call to investigate “a suspicious discovery in the crawlspace under [a] residence” in Big Bear Lake, according to the sheriff’s office. Deputies and members of the Big Bear fire department ultimately located human remains in that crawlspace.

Although the remains could not be immediately identified, an autopsy determined the manner of death was homicide, the sheriff’s office said. The agency’s cold homicide case team submitted the unidentified remains for additional investigative DNA analysis in 2023.

That analysis identified the remains as Jill Maiorca’s, the sheriff’s office said. Investigators had come to consider Jeff Maiorca — who had been Jill’s husband and had filed to divorce her in 2004, court records showed — as a suspect.

Citing unspecified evidence, the sheriff’s office asserted that Jill Maiorca had been murdered in November 2006. Her remains were concealed “without the homeowner’s knowledge” beneath the residence where they were later discovered, the sheriff’s office said. The agency did not elaborate on the hiding of Jill Maiorca’s body.

Business records reviewed by the Guardian link Jeff Maiorca to a heating, ventilation and air conditioning company. Other records showed his divorce from Jill Maiorca was classified as one involving children.

Jeff Maiorca remained in custody on Saturday at the High Desert jail in Adelanto, California, records indicated. Multiple media outlets reported that he was being held there without bail. He was tentatively scheduled to appear in court again on October 12.

The case is what could be one of the latest in the United States to be solved with modern DNA techniques, authorities said.