50-year-old unsolved case: DNA links rape and murder of Fresno High School girl to convicted rapist

Investigators said DNA evidence links a now-deceased convicted rapist to a nearly 50-year-old hanging of a 17-year-old Fresno High School student.

According to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office, Debra Curb was found suffocated by a leotard in her home on College Avenue near Ashlan Avenue and Maroa Avenue on New Year’s Day 1974.

A detective ordered a DNA test in December 2021, and the results recently pointed to James Arthur Blaylock, the sheriff’s office said Thursday.

Before the results were available, investigators planned to subpoena Blaylock for questioning in 2022 and learned that he had died in the hospital at age 66, the sheriff’s office said.

Although investigators in 1974 said she had not been raped, in the decades that followed, detectives concluded she had been sexually abused.

Blaylock was later suspected of the crime, but prosecutors never filed charges against him due to a lack of evidence, investigators said.

According to the archives, the teenager was a member of the California Scholarship Federation and the Student Council. She was also described as a cheerful and excellent student.

The night before the crime, according to the Fresno Bee Archives in 1974, Debra hosted a small New Year’s Eve party with her boyfriend and two other students, including Blaylock.

The other three left shortly after midnight when Blaylock dropped the other two off. Investigators believe Blaylock then returned to the girl’s home and carried out the attack.

According to archives, her body was found the next afternoon by her parents, who had been in Pismo.

Blaylock was convicted of brutal rapes of sex workers in the 1980s and was a registered sex offender.

In later interviews, Blaylock denied raping her and later claimed he had consensual sex with her, investigators said.