Watch CBS News

$100K Reward In '94 Cold Case Murder At Santa Clara Tech Firm

SANTA CLARA (CBS SF) - Police have convinced a Silicon Valley firm to renew its offer of a $100,000 reward for information leading to a conviction for the murder of one of its engineers.

On March 24, 1994, a 26-year-old engineer named Matthew Flores pulled his white Chevy Corsica into the parking lot of Applied Materials in Santa Clara at 8:15 a.m. ready to work.

As Flores got out of the car, he was shot execution style in the back of the head. The killing happened just beyond the view of the security cameras trained on the parking lot.

KCBS' Betsy Gebhart Reports:

Santa Clara Police Chief Kevin Kyle was optimistic the reward, coupled with fresh eyes from the Santa Clara County District Attorney's newly-reconstituted cold case unit, would help generate new leads in a case that has baffled investigators for 17 years.

"We are extremely confident that someone somewhere, directly or indirectly, knows something about the killing," he said.

At a news conference Thursday, police showed an old segment from the Unsolved Mysteries TV series that featured Flores' widow Denise and their daughter, then just 8 months old.

Chief Kyle said one of the strongest clues is still an early 1990s Ford Explorer seen entering and exiting the parking lot around the time of the murder.

The Flores family issued a statement to ask anyone with information about the murder to contact police.

"We beg you to come forward because we have been living in agony for 17 years and Matthew deserves some justice. We need to know that we can live in a society where this heinous crime is totally unacceptable and that others will be willing to take a stand for justice; there must be someone or various individuals who know exactly what happened," the statement read.

Family members said they are grateful for the police involvement and the $100,000 reward offered by Applied Materials, a supplier of materials and equipment for semiconductor manufacturing and solar panels.  The family said they hoped to find peace in his death by finding answers to why he was killed.

"Matthew was an exceptional, caring human being who did not deserve to be brutally murdered. He is constantly in our thoughts and it is so frustrating for us to not know who and why someone could have committed such a horrible crime," the family said in the statement.

Anyone with information regarding Flores' murder can contact police by calling a tip line at (408) 615-4817.

(© 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.