Justice for Veronica

LAWTON--For the last 19 years, Velda and Henry Jefferson have wondered who killed their daughter Veronica.  Last year they found out who police say did it, and now he's set to appear in a Virginia court next month.

"Relief.  Relief that's all," said Veronica's mother, Velda Jefferson.  "To know the person is caught and is going to get justice due.  It gives us closure."

The man police say killed Veronica Jefferson is Alfredo R. Prieto.  Prieto has been on death row at San Quentin in California since his 1991 conviction for the murder and rape of a 15-year-old girl.

In 2006, Alfredo Prieto was linked to the 1988 murders of Veronica Jefferson, Rachael Raver, and Warren Fulton using DNA.  Raver and Fulton were found dead in December 1988, seven months after the 23-year-old Jefferson was found shot to death and sexually assaulted behind a school near Alexandria, Virginia.  Veronica Jefferson was working in the accounting department at the CIA at the time of her death.

"I wonder what type of lady she would've been right now," asked Veronica's father Henry Jefferson.  "I wonder would she have married?  Would she have had kids?"

"My emotions are right now in check because I have not come face to face with him (Prieto)," Velda Jefferson said.  "I don't know what I'll feel when I come face to face with him."

If Prieto is convicted, Velda Jefferson will get her chance to confront Prieto in a victim's impact statement.

"I just want him to know that people still think of her and have good words about her," she said.  "I want him to know that even though he took her life he didn't take her spirit and that it lives on.  Her life lives on within us.  Within our hearts, and within our thoughts."

Prieto's trial for the murders of Veronica Jefferson and Rachael Raver begins March 19th in Fairfax, Virginia.  The trial is set to last at least two weeks.