Man Faces Charges in ’82 Killing of Woman : Crime: Minnesota convict will be arraigned today in murder of CSUN staff member. Police say they have new evidence.

A Minnesota convict is to be arraigned today on charges he raped and murdered a Cal State Northridge staff member nine years ago in a case that drew wide attention.

Jonathan Karl Lundh, 43, is accused of killing Patty Lynne Cohen, who was found strangled May 2, 1982, five days after she disappeared from the underground parking garage of a Holiday Inn in Burbank where she had attended a self-improvement seminar.

Cohen, 40, of Tarzana was assistant to the dean of the CSUN School of Arts. Her nude body was discovered in the trunk of her red Mustang in an alley near Vanowen Street in North Hollywood.

Authorities said Wednesday they have new evidence linking Lundh to the killing. Lundh was a suspect in 1982, but prosecutors did not have enough evidence to file charges.

The case was moved to the Los Angeles Police Department’s archives, where it remained until a prosecutor came across it while making a routine information search last year, said Detective Larry Bird. After reviewing the files, the prosecutor urged Bird to reopen the investigation because it appeared that authorities had nearly enough evidence to seek charges.

Bird did so and later uncovered additional evidence. “I knew it was him all the time,” he said Wednesday.

Neither Bird nor the Los Angeles County prosecutor assigned to the case, Deputy Dist. Atty. Phillip H. Rabichow, would disclose the new evidence.

Lundh, described in court records as a con artist with nine aliases and arrest records in at least five states, was charged last year with Cohen’s murder, rape and robbery. But he fought extradition to California from a prison in Stillwater, Minn., where he was serving a term for grand theft, authorities said.

Lundh was ordered returned to Los Angeles last month and is scheduled to enter a plea to the charges today in Van Nuys Municipal Court.

The disappearance and slaying of the small, blond woman who organized musical performances on the CSUN campus was highly publicized in the San Fernando Valley. Bird said Cohen, the divorced mother of two teen-agers, was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time: the underground parking garage of the Burbank hotel where he said Lundh had gone to stalk women.

“He definitely went there to prey on women,” Bird said.

According to police and court records, Lundh unsuccessfully tried to abduct a woman at knifepoint from the parking lot in front of the hotel, but the woman broke free, got in her car and tried to chase after him. While fleeing, Lundh ran into the underground parking garage and saw Cohen, Bird said.

“We believe he abducted Patty Cohen to get away from the hotel,” Bird said.

Police distributed a composite drawing of a suspect made with the help of the first woman, Ruth Kilday. Lundh, who was using the alias John Baker, was arrested May 6, 1982, in North Hollywood after leading police on a high-speed chase in a stolen car.

In 1983, Lundh was convicted of assaulting Kilday and sentenced to four years in prison.

After his release, he moved to Minnesota, his home state. Details on the grand theft case that placed him back in prison were unavailable Wednesday.

According to court records, Lundh described himself as an antique auto dealer after his arrest in 1982. His record at the time included numerous arrests in several states for fraud and theft involving automobile sales. A Los Angeles County probation report described him as a “very sophisticated manipulator and con artist who uses his intelligence to defraud the public.”

Lundh admitted to the officer who prepared the report that he had a lengthy criminal record but denied any involvement in crimes of violence. According to the report, he said, “Hurting people is tacky.”