Arrest Made In Pinyon Pines Cold Case

The victim in an eight-year-old cold case homicide -- recently solved by investigators -- had accused her common-law husband of having a homosexual affair just before she was found dead off Highway 74 in Pinyon Pines, south of Palm Desert, court records show.

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department announced the arrest of William Alderson, 51, of Lanette, Alabama, on Monday, Nov. 7.  Alderson is suspected in the strangulation-death of his wife, Daphne Athene Patterson.

He was taken into custody on Nov. 2 at his Alabama home, according to sheriff’s Sgt. Scott Brown.

The case was reopened earlier this year when the sheriff's Cold Case Unit retested the evidence and re-interviewed witnesses, the sergeant said.

Daphne Patterson’s body was found 30 feet down an embankment 1.5 miles south of Vista Point in Pinyon on July 6, 2003, according to a sheriff’s release at the time. A motorist who had pulled over on the side of the highway spotted Patterson's bare feet sticking out of a blue blanket, court documents show.

Investigators gathered evidence at the scene and determined that the woman was likely strangled at another location, then dumped off the side of the roadway the day before, the sheriff’s department said. She had injuries to her face and throat.

At the time of her death, the couple lived in Palm Springs, and Patterson had given birth to a child six months earlier, according to Brown and court documents.

Alderson reported his common-law wife missing to Palm Springs Police, he said.

"Alderson claimed that Patterson had left the house after an argument and never returned," the sergeant said.

Investigators learned during interviews that Patterson had recently accused Alderson of having a homosexual affair, and that she told friends she had found gay pronography in his van, court documents state.

"There are many statements made by Patterson to friends and coworkers indicating that she was afraid of Alderson; that he was violent; that she wanted to leave him; that she would never leve the baby with Alderson; that Alderson was not the father of the child," according to the documents.

When questioned by police, Alderson gave several different accounts of how and why she left their home, leaving her child behind.

Court records did not show what happened to the couple's child.

A first-degree murder charge was filed on Oct. 25 in Riverside. It was not immediately clear when he would be brought to Riverside County to appear in court.