A New Mexico man who raped and murdered a 79-year-old grandmother in the bedroom of her Anaheim apartment more than four decades ago was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

An Orange County Superior Court jury earlier this year found Andre William Lepere, now 65, guilty of first-degree murder for the 1980 slaying of Viola Hagenkord, with jurors also determining that the killing occurred during the commission of a rape.

DNA and a genetic profile was recently used to tie Lepere, who was 22 at the time, to the long-unsolved rape and killing.

Lepere admitted to having what he described as consensual sex with the woman who was more than 50 years his senior within 24 hours of her violent death. But he denied sexually assaulting or killing her, instead claiming she instigated the sexual encounters out of loneliness.

During the trial, Deputy District Attorney Christopher Alex described Lepere’s story as “ridiculous,” telling jurors that Hagenkord had sworn off men after divorcing her husband before the Great Depression and had a granddaughter who was a decade older than Lepere.

Hagenkord, who was born in 1900, moved into an apartment complex in the 2500 block of West Winton Road in Anaheim after her family worried that her longtime neighborhood in Milwaukee was becoming too dangerous. Neighbors remembered her as a friendly woman who liked to stand outside her apartment and chat with people who passed by.

On Feb. 18, 1980, a worried neighbor entered Hagenkord’s apartment after not seeing her for several days and discovered her body. She had been sexually assaulted and gagged with a pillowcase, which caused her to asphyxiate. Knocked over furniture and clothes strewn about the room led authorities to suspect a struggle in the bedroom, but there were no signs of forced entry into the apartment.

Investigators initially focused on people who had committed similar crimes in the same time period around Southern California, but they were all eliminated as suspects.

Lepere – whose sister lived at the same complex as Hagenkord – did not emerge as a suspect at the time of the initial investigation.

Semen found in Hagenkord’s body was collected in a rape kit, but DNA testing was still in its infancy and the case went cold.

By the early 2002, crime lab technicians were able to go back to the rape kit and create a DNA profile from the semen. Then, in 2021, advanced genetic testing tied the DNA to Lepere, who was arrested in New Mexico.

Lepere had left Southern California in the 1980s, going on to live a quiet life as a plumber and truck driver in a number of states, including Washington, Wyoming and Arizona. Lepere’s family – including his current wife, a stepson and a sister – all later testified that they were shocked at his arrest and didn’t believe he was capable of killing anyone.

During his trial, Lepere testified to having two sexual encounters with Hagenkord, both of which he said the elderly woman initiated after claiming to be lonely.

Lepere described regretting the first encounter, but said he still agreed to the second. Lepere testified that days later he learned of Hagenkord’s violent death while returning a tool to someone who lived at the complex.

Lepere’s attorney, Alternate Defender Lee Stonum, argued to jurors that DNA not belonging to Lepere was found on the pillow case used to gag Hagenkord. The defense attorney also identified other possible suspects, including a man who was caught climbing into an apartment window at the same complex and placing his hand over a sleeping woman’s mouth months after Hagenkord’s killing.

The prosecutor countered by telling jurors that in order to believe Lepere, one would have to accept that within a day of Hagenkord successfully seducing and having sex with Lepere, another man would have had to come along to rape and kill Hagenkord in the same bed in the same apartment.

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