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Forensic Case Files

Delve into the intriguing world of forensic science and criminal investigations with our comprehensive collection of case studies. Explore real-life examples of serial killers, unsolved cold cases, missing persons, and other true crimes. Gain insight into the forensic techniques and investigative strategies used to analyze evidence, identify suspects, and...

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Breakthrough in Cold Case: DNA from Cigarette Butts Leads to Arrest...

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Unraveling the Mystery: DDP Identifies 1983 Teen Victim of Larry Eyler,...

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The Horrific Crimes of Luis Garavito: The Most Prolific Serial Killer in Modern...

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Unraveling the Chilling Tale of Jeffrey Dahmer: America’s Cannibalistic Serial Killer

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Gary Ridgway: Unraveling the Horrifying Crimes of the Green River Killer

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Ted Bundy’s Reign of Terror: A Timeline of His Crimes &...

Explore the chilling criminal profile of Ted Bundy, his reign of terror during the 1970s, the infamous Chi Omega sorority house murders, and his... Read More

Breakthrough in Solving a Cold Case Homicide: The Long-Awaited Closure

Read the incredible story of how a cold case homicide from 1981 was finally solved using cutting-edge DNA technology and forensic genealogy. Read More

Unlocking the Secrets of the Gilgo Beach Murders through Mitochondrial Analysis

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Police Make Arrest in Long Island Serial Killer Case

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The Long Island Serial Killer: Unmasking a Serial Murderer

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The Disturbing Tale of Doctor Death: Harold Shipman

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The Groundbreaking Case of Francisca Rojas: Argentina’s First Conviction through Fingerprint...

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Unmasking the Terrifying Night Stalker: Richard Ramirez’s Reign of Terror

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Amardeep Sada: The Youngest Serial Killer in the World

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Case Studies

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The identity and whereabouts of D. B. Cooper remain one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in the history of American criminal investigations. D.B. Cooper is the alias used by an unidentified individual who, in 1971, hijacked a commercial airplane, extorted a ransom, and then parachuted out of the plane, disappearing without a trace. On November […]

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Detectives Just Used DNA To Solve A 1956 Double Homicide. They May Have Made History

Sharon Pruitt-Young

Clippings from the Great Falls Tribune were part of the Cascade County Sheriff's Office investigative file into the 1956 murders of Patricia Kalitzke and Lloyd Duane Bogle. Traci Rosenbaum/USA Today Network via Reuters Co. hide caption

Clippings from the Great Falls Tribune were part of the Cascade County Sheriff's Office investigative file into the 1956 murders of Patricia Kalitzke and Lloyd Duane Bogle.

It was only three days into 1956 when three boys from Montana, out for a hike on a normal January day, made a gruesome discovery they were unlikely to ever forget.

During a walk near the Sun River, they found 18-year-old Lloyd Duane Bogle, dead from a gunshot wound to the head. They found him on the ground near his car, and someone had used his belt to tie his hands behind his back, according to a report from the Great Falls Tribune . The next day brought another disturbing discovery: A county road worker found 16-year-old Patricia Kalitzke's body in an area north of Great Falls, the paper reports. She had been shot in the head, just as Bogle had been, but she had also been sexually assaulted.

Their killings went unsolved until this week when investigators announced they had cracked what is believed to be the oldest case solved with DNA and forensic genealogy.

The victims were discovered in a lover's lane

Bogle, an airman hailing from Texas, and Kalitzke, a junior at Great Falls High School, had fallen for each other and were even considering marriage, the Tribune reports. The place where they were believed to have been killed was a known "lover's lane," according to a clipping from a local newspaper posted on a memorial page.

But their love story was brutally cut short by the actions of a killer whose identity would not be revealed for more than 60 years. And it was not for lack of trying: Early on in the case, investigators followed numerous leads, but none of them panned out. The case eventually went cold.

For decades, the Cascade County Sheriff's Office continued to work on it, with multiple detectives attempting to make progress over the years. One such investigator was Detective Sgt. Jon Kadner, who was assigned the case in 2012 — his first cold case, he said during an interview with NPR. He was immediately met with the daunting task of digitizing the expansive case file, an endeavor that took months.

He continued to work on the Kalitzke/Bogle case even while handling the newer cases that were landing on his desk all the time, but he had a feeling that more was needed to get to the bottom of what had happened to the couple all those decades ago.

"My first impression was that the only way we're gonna ever solve this is through the use of DNA," Kadner said.

Detectives turned to a new forensic investigation

Fortunately, Kadner had something to work with. During Kalitzke's autopsy in 1956, coroners had taken a vaginal swab, which had been preserved on a microscopic slide in the years since, according to the Great Falls Tribune report. Phil Matteson, a now-retired detective with the sheriff's office, sent that sample to a local lab for testing in 2001, and the team there identified sperm that did not belong to Bogle, her boyfriend, the paper reports.

Armed with this knowledge, Kadner in 2019 sought out the assistance of Bode Technology. After forensic genealogy was used to finally nab the Golden State Killer the year prior, law enforcement officials were becoming increasingly aware of the potential to use that technology to solve cold cases — even decades-old cases like Kalitzke and Bogle's.

With the help of partnering labs, forensic genealogists are able to use preserved samples to create a DNA profile of the culprit and then use that profile to search public databases for any potential matches. In most cases, those profiles can end up linking to distant relatives of the culprit — say, a second or third cousin. By searching public records (such as death certificates and newspaper clippings), forensic genealogists are then able to construct a family tree that can point them right to the suspect, even if that suspect has never provided their DNA to any public database.

In this case, "Our genealogists, what they're going to do is independently build a family tree from this cousin's profile," Andrew Singer, an executive with Bode Technology, told NPR. He called it "a reverse family tree. ... We're essentially going backwards. We're starting with a distant relative and trying to work back toward our unknown sample."

It worked: DNA testing led investigators to a man named Kenneth Gould. Before moving to Missouri in 1967, Gould had lived with his wife and children in the Great Falls area around the time of the murders, according to the Tribune .

"It felt great because for the first time in 65 years we finally had a direction and a place to take the investigation," Kadner told NPR. "Because it was all theories up to that point ... we finally had a match and we had a name. That changed the whole dynamic of the case."

Investigators' goal is a safer world

But there was one big problem: Gould had died in 2007 and his remains had been cremated, according to the Tribune . The only way to prove his guilt or his innocence was to test the DNA of his remaining relatives.

Detectives had an uncomfortable task ahead of them: letting a dead man's family know that, despite the fact that he'd never previously been identified as a person of interest, he was now the key suspect in a double homicide and rape.

Authorities traveled to Missouri, where they spoke with Gould's children and told them about the Kalitzke/Bogle case and eventually identified their father as a suspect, Kadner said. They asked for the family's help in either proving or disproving that Gould was the man responsible and the family complied.

The test results said Gould was the guy. With the killer finally identified, Kadner was able to reach out to the victims' surviving relatives and deliver the closure that had taken more than 60 years to procure. It was a bittersweet revelation: They were grateful for answers, but for many of the older people in the family, it was a struggle to have those wounds reopened.

"They're excited, but at the same time, it has brought up a lot of memories," Kadner said.

Now, the sheriff's office is considering forming a cold case task force, as other law enforcement agencies have done. The hope is that they'll be able to provide more families with the answers they deserve and, in many cases, have spent years waiting for.

"If there's new technology and we are able to potentially solve something, we want to keep working at it, because ultimately we're trying to do it for the family," he said. "Give them some closure."

The Kalitzke/Bogle case is one of the oldest criminal cases that has been solved using forensic genealogy, and authorities are hopeful that they'll be able to use this ever-advancing technology to solve cold cases dating back even further — although new state legislation restricting forensic genealogy could complicate matters.

Even without that complication, Singer explained to NPR, the success rate depends heavily on how well the evidence has been preserved over the years. Still, he hopes that it can be used to help law enforcement improve public safety and "[prevent] tomorrow's victim."

"It's really fantastic technology and it's going to solve a lot of cold cases," Singer said.

A Case Study on Murder Mystery Solved by DNA Typing

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• First Online: 25 July 2021
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• Subhasish Sahoo 4 &
• Rashmita Samal 5  

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DNA evidence plays the role of a powerful tool in linking a suspect to the crime. DNA typing in forensics is used for identification and paternity and immigration cases. It helps not only in identifying the culprit but also in exonerating the innocent. DNA typing and its continuous advances in forensic science and genetics have made these techniques almost foolproof to be applied in various complex cases. Here, we will discuss a murder case where a newlywed woman killed her husband on the first night but concealed it as death due to snake bite. Injection syringes used by her for injection of drugs were recovered from the backyard. The injection syringes contained a speck of dried blood, which came out to be a good source of DNA evidence. DNA was extracted from the dried blood, quantified, amplified, and sequenced on automated DNA sequencer. The short tandem repeat (STR) profile generated matched with the profiles of parents of the deceased at 21 autosomal STR loci and additionally 3 gender loci. DNA typing could confirm the alleged murder of the deceased by the newly wed woman and her accomplice by administration of drugs leading to cardiac arrest.

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Hagelberg E, Gray IC, Jeffreys AJ (1991) Identification of the skeletal remains of a murder victim by DNA analysis. Nature 352(6334):427–429. https://doi.org/10.1038/352427a0

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National Crime Records Bureau (2019) Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

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National Research Council (U.S.) (1992) DNA technology in forensic science. National Academy Press, Washington, DC

Philip B (2014) Solving cold cases with DNA: the Boston strangler case. NIJ J 273:48–51. Available at http://www.nij.gov/journals/273/pages/boston-strangler.aspx

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HOD DNA Division, State Forensic Science Laboratory, Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India

Subhasish Sahoo

DNA Division, State Forensic Science Lab, Rasulgarh, Bhubaneswar, India

Rashmita Samal

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Scientific Officer, Regional Forensic Science Laboratory, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

Hirak Ranjan Dash

DNA Fingerprinting Unit, Forensic Science Laboratory, Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, India

Pankaj Shrivastava

University of Granada, Granada, Granada, Spain

José Antonio Lorente

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Sahoo, S., Samal, R. (2021). A Case Study on Murder Mystery Solved by DNA Typing. In: Dash, H.R., Shrivastava, P., Lorente, J.A. (eds) Handbook of DNA Profiling. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9364-2_22-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-9364-2_22-1

Received : 20 February 2021

Accepted : 01 March 2021

Published : 25 July 2021

Publisher Name : Springer, Singapore

Print ISBN : 978-981-15-9364-2

Online ISBN : 978-981-15-9364-2

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Ted Bundy Although serial killer Ted Bundy was responsible for an estimated 30-plus murders, there was little physical evidence to connect him to the crimes when he was arrested in 1975. Two years later, having been convicted only of kidnapping, Bundy was preparing to stand trial for murder in Colorado when he escaped and headed to Florida. There, he killed three more people early in 1978, and when he was finally captured in February of that year, the physical evidence in those cases led to his conviction. Most crucial was the matching of a bite mark on the buttock  of victim Lisa Levy to the Bundy’s distinctive, crooked and chipped teeth. He was convicted also of the murder of 12-year-old Kimberly Leach based on fibres found in his van that matched the girl’s clothing. Bundy was put to death in 1989.

The Lindbergh Kidnapping On March 1, 1932, Charles Lindbergh Jr., the 20-month-old son of the famous aviator, was kidnapped, and although a ransom of $50,000 was paid, the child was never returned. His body was discovered in May just a few miles from his home. Tracking the circulation of the bills used in the ransom payment, authorities were led to Bruno Hauptmann, who was found with over $14,000 of the money in his garage. While Hauptmann claimed that the money belonged to a friend, key testimony from handwriting analysts matched his writing to that on the ransom notes . Additional forensic research connected the wood in Hauptmann’s attic to the wood used in the make-shift ladder that the kidnappers built to reach the child’s bedroom window. Hauptmann was convicted and executed in 1936.

The Atlanta Child Murders In a two year period between 1979 and 1981, 29 people — almost all children — were strangled by a serial killer. Police staked out a local river where other bodies had been dumped and arrested Wayne Williams as he was driving away from the sound of a splash in an area where a body was recovered a couple of days later. Police didn’t witness him drop the body, so their case was based largely on forensic evidence gathered from fibers found on the victims . In all, there were nearly 30 types of fiber linked to items from Williams’ house, his vehicles and even his dog. In 1982, he was convicted of killing two adult victims and sentenced to life in prison, although the Atlanta police announced that Williams was responsible for at least 22 of the child murders.

The Howard Hughes Hoax  In 1970, authors Clifford Irving and Richard Suskind concocted a scheme to forge an autobiography of notoriously eccentric and reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. Assuming that Hughes would never come out from hiding to denounce the book, they felt that their plan was fool-proof. Irving went to publisher McGraw-Hill claiming that Hughes had approached him to write his life story and that he was willing to correspond with only the author. As proof, Irving produced forged letters that he claimed were from Hughes. McGraw-Hill agreed, paying $765,000 for the right to publish the book. When word of the book was made public, however, Hughes contacted reporters to denounce it as false. Not wishing to appear in public, the billionaire would talk to reporters only via telephone. Thus, a “spectographic voiceprint analysis,” measuring tone, pitch and volume, was conducted to determine if the speaker was indeed Howard Hughes. Although a handwriting expert had previously been fooled by the notes that Irving had forged, the voice analyst correctly identified the speaker as Hughes. Irving was exposed and confessed before the book was published. He spent 17 months in prison, while Suskind spent five. Irving later wrote a book about the scheme,  The Hoax , which became a major motion picture in 2008.

The Night Stalker   Between June 1984 and August 1985, a Southern California serial killer dubbed the Night Stalker broke into victims’ houses as they slept and attacked, murdering 13 and assaulting numerous others. With citizens on high alert, an observant teenager noticed a suspicious vehicle driving through his neighborhood on the night of August 24, 1985. He wrote down the license plate and notified police. It just so happened that the Night Stalker’s latest attack took place that night in that area, so police tracked down the car. It had been abandoned, but police found a key piece of evidence inside: a fingerprint . Using new computer system, investigators quickly matched the print to 25-year-old Richard Ramirez and plastered his image in the media. Within a week, Ramirez was recognized and captured by local citizens. He was sentenced to death.

Machine Gun Kelly George “Machine Gun” Kelly was a notorious criminal during the Prohibition era, taking part in bootlegging, kidnapping and armed robbery. On July 22, 1933, he and another man kidnapped wealthy Oklahoma City oilman Charles Urschel. After a series of ransom notes and communications, a $200,000 ransom was paid — the largest amount ever paid in a kidnapping to date. Urschel was released nine days later, unharmed. The oilman had shrewdly paid close attention to every detail during his ordeal and was able to relate it all to police. Although he was blindfolded, he could tell day from night and was able to estimate the time of day that he heard airplanes fly above. He also noted the date and time of a thunderstorm and the types of animals he heard in what he presumed to be a farmhouse. Using his memories, the FBI pinpointed the likely location in which Urschel was held to a farm owned by Kelly’s father-in-law. What truly linked Kelly and his gang to the kidnapping, though, was Urschel’s fingerprints , which he made sure to place on as many items in the house as possible. Kelly was sentenced to life in prison, where he died in 1954.

The Green River Killer The Green River Killer was responsible for a rash of murders — at least 48 but possibly close to 90 — along the Green River in Washington state in the ’80s and ’90s. Most of the killings occurred in 1982-83, and the victims were almost all prostitutes. One of the suspects that police had identified as early as 1983 was Gary Ridgway , a man with a history of frequenting and abusing prostitutes. However, although they collected DNA samples from Ridgway in 1987, the technology available didn’t allow them to connect him to the killings. It wasn’t until 2001 that new DNA techniques spurred the reexamination of evidence that incriminated Ridgway . He was arrested and later confessed. Ridgway pleaded guilty to 48 murders — later confessing to even more, which remain unconfirmed — in exchange for being spared the death penalty. He was sentenced to 48 life sentences without the possibility of parole.

BTK Killer The BTK (“Bind, Torture, Kill”) Killer was a serial killer who terrorized the Wichita, Kansas area between 1974 and 1991, murdering 10 people over the span. The killer craved media attention and sent letters to local newspapers and TV stations, taunting investigators. It’s this egotism that led to his capture, however. When he resurfaced in 2004 with a series of communications, he chose to send a computer floppy disk to the  Wichita Eagle . Forensic analysts traced the deleted data on the disk to a man named Dennis at the Christ Lutheran Church in Wichita . It didn’t take long for the police to arrest Dennis Rader , who confessed and was sentenced to nine life terms in prison.

Jeffrey MacDonald Early in the morning of February 17, 1970, the family of Army doctor Jeffrey MacDonald was attacked, leaving the doctor’s pregnant wife and two young daughters dead from multiple stab wounds. MacDonald himself was injured by what he claimed to be four suspects, but he survived with only minor wounds. Doubt was immediately cast on the doctor’s story, based on the physical evidence on the scene that suggested that he was the killer. However, the Army dropped the case because of the poor quality of the investigative techniques. Several years later, though, MacDonald was brought to trial in a civilian court. Key evidence was provided by a forensic scientist who testified that the doctor’s pajama top, which he claimed to have used to ward off the killers, had 48 smooth, clean holes — too smooth for such a volatile attack. Furthermore, the scientist noted that if the top was folded, the 48 holes could easily have been created by 21 thrusts — the exact number of times that MacDonald’s wife had been stabbed. The holes even matched the pattern of her wounds, suggesting that the pajama top had been laid on her before during the stabbing and not used in self-defense by the doctor. This crime scene reconstruction was crucial in MacDonald’s conviction in 1979. He was sentenced to life in prison for the three murders.

John Joubert In 1983, two murders of schoolboys rocked the Omaha, Nebraska area. The body of one of the boys was found tied with a type of rope that investigators couldn’t identify. While following up on the lead of a mysterious man scouting out a school, they traced the suspect’s license plate to John Joubert , a radar technician at the local Air Force base. In his belongings, they found a rope matching the unusual one used in the murder (which turned out to be Korean). Although DNA analysis technology was not yet an option, the extreme rarity of the rope was enough to lead to Joubert’s confession . Furthermore, hair from one of the victims was found in Joubert’s car . The child killer was even linked to a third murder, in Maine, when his teeth were found to match bite marks on a boy killed in 1982. Joubert was found guilty of all three murders and was put to death in the electric chair in 1996.

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• Forensics Colleges » Forensic Education Blog » Resources » 10 Cold Cases Solved

10 Cold Cases Solved

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Solving cold cases provides closure for families who have waited years for justice. Recent developments in DNA evidence analysis and true crime artistry are hastening these long-overdue resolutions. Unfortunately, closing a case also means bringing up painful memories associated with these tragedies. However, knowing the full truth of what happened can bring peace of mind to loved ones of murder victims whose deaths have been shrouded in mystery and heartbreak.

With the increasing use of DNA analysis, cold cases are being solved faster than ever. In the past, cold murder cases could remain unsolved for decades due to a lack of evidence. However, modern advances in DNA technology mean that police can now solve the most long-term murder cases and overturn wrongful convictions.

For example, in Germany in 2023 , a man was arrested as a suspect in a 1988 cold murder case after police used DNA analysis to match the suspect’s profile with evidence from the crime scene. Moreover, in 2017, DNA testing exonerated 71-year-old Craig Coley of a double murder he was wrongfully convicted of in 1978.

True crime media and stories have become increasingly popular in recent years, as they provide a medium to explore the intricacies of unsolved cold murder cases and other mysteries. While it is easy to dismiss true crime solely as entertainment, its presence in society has undeniably contributed to solving historical cold cases. Michelle McNamara , an American true crime author and journalist, wrote a bestselling book about the Golden State Killer, which was published posthumously after her death in 2016. Her book turned into an HBO docu-series titled “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” and two months after its release, police arrested and later convicted serial killer and rapist Joseph James DeAngelo. The true-crime genre does more than sell books: it brings attention to previously forgotten cases and helps generate public interest in unsolved crimes.

Thanks to advances in forensic genealogy and other cutting-edge technologies, forgotten crimes can now be reexamined with much greater accuracy, unlocking new leads that would otherwise remain hidden with the support of specialized DNA databases . At the same time, the popularity of true crime books, TV series, and podcasts have raised public interest in unsolved mysteries, encouraging citizens to submit any additional evidence or tips that could help bring closure and justice to victims’ families. These two forces have ushered in a new era of cold case solving.

Check out this list of 10 cold murder cases that have been solved thanks to modern DNA analysis and true crime journalists. Each of these cases was considered unsolvable until advances in forensic science and mainstream media made it possible to bring long-awaited closure and justice for the victims’ families.

Joseph James DeAngelo was arrested and charged with 13 counts of murder in 2018, linked to multiple unsolved cold cases that dated as far back as 1974. To find him, investigators used public genealogy databases matching the efforts with data obtained from the victims’ relatives leading them closer and closer until they found DeAngelo himself by using his discarded items, such as razors and napkins, to obtain his DNA which connected him to 13 murders, 51 sexual assaults, and 120 burglaries.

The HBO limited series “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” released shortly before DeAngelo’s arrest in 2018, featured the case of the Golden State Killer, as told through interviews with victims, family members, and investigators, providing an in-depth look at how this unsolved case was eventually solved. In 2020, The Guardian reported DeAngelo was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Robert Durst is a New York real estate heir who has been accused of, and convicted of, several criminal activities. He was initially arrested in 2001 for the murder of his neighbor in Galveston, Texas, but he was eventually acquitted after claiming self-defense. The investigation into this case reignited in 2015 when Durst was a key suspect in the disappearance of his first wife, Kathie McCormack Durst. The documentary series, “ The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst ,” detailed the alleged criminal activities.

On the same night, the final episode aired, Durst was arrested for the murder of Susan Berman, his long-time friend, who knew the truth about the disappearance of Durst’s first wife. In September 2020, Durst was sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree murder of Susan Berman in December 2000. Shortly after, he was charged with the murder of his first wife, but it never went to trial. According to The Guardian , Durst died in a California hospital in January 2022 while serving his life sentence.

In 1956, three boys discovered the body of 18-year-old Lloyd Duane Bogle near his car with a gunshot wound to the head, the victim’s hands tied behind his back. The following day, a county road worker uncovered 16-year-old Patricia Kalitzke’s body north of Great Falls; she was shot and sexually assaulted.

These killings remained unsolved until June 2021, when investigators announced they had used DNA evidence and forensic genealogy to crack the case, making it one of the oldest cold cases solved using these methods. Unfortunately, the killer, Kenneth Gould, died in 2007.

In 2022, new developments in the 2009 “Baby Theresa” case were revealed. A moniker given to a nameless newborn found by the side of a road, the body of Baby Theresa was found on June 5th, 2009, deceased and tied up in a garbage bag near Theresa, Wisconsin. DNA evidence identified Baby Theresa’s biological parents, Karin Luttinen, and her boyfriend (who was not named in the case). Authorities found the parents through DNA technology, according to WMTV .

Forensic investigation showed that “Baby Theresa” died during or soon after birth and was not murdered, but whose body was abandoned. In September 2022, Karin Luttinen was sentenced to three years of probation after her guilty plea for concealing the death of a child.

For nearly 52 years, the cold case of Nancy Marie Bennallack’s murder had been a mystery. In October 1970, the 28-year-old court reporter was brutally stabbed in her Sacramento apartment. Her family, friends, and even her then fiancé, whom she was supposed to marry about a month later, had no answers for decades about who killed her.

In August 2022, Yahoo! News reported investigators from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office and Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office identified Richard John Davis as Nancy’s killer thanks to the advanced technology of DNA genealogy techniques, which have been used extensively to capture the Golden State Killer. Davis died from complications of alcoholism in 1997 at age 54. The cold case was finally put to rest after more than four decades.

The cold case of Anna Jean Kane’s murder goes back over 35 years, making it one of the longest unsolved cases in Pennsylvania. The brutal crime occurred on October 23, 1988, alongside a road in Perry Township. After decades of dead-ends, breakthrough DNA genetic genealogy technology has finally identified Scott Grim as the killer. Pennsylvania State Police and Berks County District Attorney John Adams broke the news in August 2022.

It is an incredible development that offers long-awaited closure for Anna Kane’s family, especially with added insight from a chilling letter sent to a local newspaper after her death that contained intimate details of the crime.

In February 1990, the cold case was reignited when an anonymous letter, signed by a “concerned citizen”, addressed the newspaper containing “numerous intimate details” about the murder. State Police Trooper Daniel Womer said this led them to believe that the letter’s author may have been responsible for the homicide. The saliva-sealed envelope from which the letter was sent tested positive for DNA matching that on Kane’s clothing, indicating Scott Grim as a possible suspect.

Unfortunately, Grim passed away in 2018 due to natural causes and could not be brought to trial to testify. He had been just 26 years of age at the time of Kane’s murder, according to NBC .

The cold case of Fawn Cox has been a source of deep grief and immense frustration for Kansas City Missouri Police Department detectives over the last three decades. On June 26th, 1989, someone broke into her bedroom window and sexually assaulted her before killing her in cold blood—all while the rest of her family slept on, oblivious to the violence happening in the other room. Thankfully, crime scene investigators collected bodily fluids from a potential suspect then, although current forensic technology did not allow them to pinpoint the culprit.

Using genealogical DNA results, they could narrow in on Donald Cox, Jr., Fawn’s cousin, who had passed away in 2006. Though his death was not due to foul play, it was suspicious enough for the medical examiner to retain a blood sample from the investigation. Upon extraction and comparison with an existing DNA profile from the original crime scene 14 years prior, there proved to be a match. When investigators shared this discovery with Fawn’s family in November 2020, both of her still-living parents expressed sorrow yet relief that their suspicions may have been true all along.

The cold case of Jody Loomis had haunted families and police officers for 47 years, until a stunning development in 2019 when the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Department identified a suspect, according to the Seattle Times . On August 23, 1972, when Jody Loomis’ body was discovered lying by a dirt road with a gunshot wound above her right ear, DNA evidence was preserved on her body and boots.

Years later, the evidence was submitted for genetic genealogy identification. It linked it to 78-year-old Terrence Miller, who lived only 17 minutes from the crime scene where Jody had been murdered. This compelled officers to arrest and charge Miller with first-degree murder. Using DNA evidence, authorities could match Miller’s genetic profile to the semen collected from Jody’s boots. Unfortunately, Miller took his own life just hours before he was to be convicted by a jury.

In May 1987, police were stymied by the death of Shannon Lloyd in Orange County, California, who was found sexually assaulted and strangled to death in her own apartment. Though a suspect wasn’t found at the time, two whole years later, in 1989, another California woman, Renee Cuevas, met with a similar destiny—and both cases were separately investigated until 2003 when CODIS (The Combined DNA Index System) revealed that their crime scenes shared the same genealogical match. However, no suspect could be pinpointed from the data collected.

In 2021, investigators turned to a revolutionary approach: using genetic genealogy to find suspects. This technique finds partial matches using an unknown individual’s sample of DNA and attempts to build a family tree based on these similarities. According to NBC Los Angeles , the DNA investigation led detectives back to Rueben Smith, who had lived in the area during both crimes. It was revealed that he had a criminal record for sexual assault and attempted murder in Las Vegas dating back to 1998; a DNA sample taken then was later used to connect him to the cold case murders. In 1999, Mr. Smith died by suicide.

After a cold case of 33 years, the mystery surrounding the 1989 murders of George and Catherine Peacock of Danby, Vermont, had finally been cracked. The couple, aged 76 and 73 at the time, had been stabbed to death in their home with no signs of forced entry.

Michael Louise, the Peacocks’ son-in-law, was identified as a suspect a few weeks later, but he remained free due to an absence of hard evidence against him. Nearly two decades later, in May 2020, according to NECN , a cold case unit from Vermont finally got its break when new forensic tests on a blood sample found in Louise’s car linked back to George Peacock. In 2022, police arrested Louise for double homicide, and justice for the Peacocks was served posthumously.

Addendum & Updates

Forensic science continually evolves; sometimes fresh evidence helps crack old cases. The emerging use of DNA evidence and true crime journalism often help to unravel the truths of old mysteries.

While we do our utmost to keep abreast of changing developments in these fascinating cases, we invite you to send any updates or to recommend additional cold cases to consider to our “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the page. Thank you in advance for helping to keep others informed.

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Methodology.

The following criteria were used in compiling this list of 10 Solved Cold Cases:

1. Crime Committed: Each cold case on this list was related to unsolved murders, sexual assaults, or missing persons.

2. Length of Case: All cold cases in this piece are at least ten years old and, in many cases, are three to six decades old.

3. Recently Solved: All cold cases featured here were solved in 2019 or later, with a formal criminal conviction (for living criminals) or DNA evidence match (for deceased suspects).

Rachel Drummond, MEd

Rachel Drummond has given her writing expertise to ForensicsColleges.com since 2019, where she provides a unique perspective on the intersection of education, mindfulness, and the forensic sciences. Her work encourages those in the field to consider the role of mental and physical well-being in their professional success.

Rachel is a writer, educator, and coach from Oregon. She has a master’s degree in education (MEd) and has over 15 years of experience teaching English, public speaking, and mindfulness to international audiences in the United States, Japan, and Spain. She writes about the mind-body benefits of contemplative movement practices like yoga on her blog , inviting people to prioritize their unique version of well-being and empowering everyone to live healthier and more balanced lives.

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