HARRIS COUNTY – Harris County authorities have solved a nearly 20-year-old cold case murder.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office said investigators with the department's cold case unit have charged 36 year-old Christopher Stoernell with the 1994 murder of his girlfriend, Ruth Majewski.
Authorities said back on Friday, September 30, 1994, Ruth Majewski arrived at Stoernell's home located in the 10300 block of Green Valley Drive in northwest Harris County. Five other teens were also there. Majewski and Stoernell went inside a bedroom and after a few minutes Majewski suffered a single gunshot wound to the chest.
She was transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital where she died.
During the initial investigation, authorities said Stoernell told them that Majewski shot herself. Authorities said Stoernell gave conflicting accounts about what happened, and no one else inside the home had witnessed the shooting.
Harris County cold case investigators reopened the case in 2011. They re-interviewed witnesses and analyzed physical evidence from the scene and determined that neither supported Stoernell's original account of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Stoernell is currently out of jail after posting a $50,000 bond.
This was the Harris County Sheriff's Office Cold Case Unit's 18th solved case since the unit was reconstituted in 2009 by Sheriff Adrian Garcia.