Murder of UC Berkeley Fil-Am student solved

Grace Asuncion, a pre-med student in UC Berkeley, was stabbed to death in 1992.

The 1992 homicide of Grace Asuncion is finally solved

On February 7, 1992, Grace Asuncion was a junior in UC Berkeley.  A pre-med student, she was a leader of the Pilipino American Alliance (PAA), the Fil-Am club on campus.  Grace was working on the fifth floor office of PAA at Eshleman Hall.  A custodian found her body, stabbed multiple times in the neck.  She had not been robbed or sexually abused.

UC Police Department identified John Iwed, an Alameda County resident who died of a drug overdose less than a year after Asuncion’s death, as the killer. Iwed was a suspect early in the case, but UCPD did not have enough corroborating evidence at the time to charge him.

The Assuncion case remained open through the years as UCPD detectives reviewed the case.  Additional statements from key witnesses in recent months and the use of new DNA testing procedures broke the case.

UCPD released a statement saying that the Alameda County District Attorney's Office reviewed the new information and would have charged Iwed with Assuncion's death if he were alive.