Today DuPage County State’s Attorney Robert Berlin announced that the 44-year-old murder case of high school junior Pamela Maurer had been solved using genetic geneology to identify the murderer, a likely serial killer. He died in 1981. https://patch.com/illinois/lisle/break-expected-1976-lisle-cold-case-murder
Berlin said that in 2001, biological evidence from Maurer’s body was analyzed and the DNA was added to the county’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) system, but no matches ever came up. In 2019, experts used DNA phenotyping to determine characteristics such as the suspect’s facial traits, eye color and appearance, and create a composite image of Maurer’s killer. A public genealogy database was used to build a family tree to help identify potential new leads in the case.
The information led police to Bruce Lindahl of Aurora, who died in 1981. Lindahl’s body was exhumed Nov. 6, 2019, in an attempt to get DNA to compare with the evidence collected from Maurer’s body.
Lindahl’s DNA came up as a match for the DNA found on Maurer’s body, authorities said.
As a result of the discovery, police believe they can now link Lindahl to other victims. “We have evidence that there may be other young women who were victimized by Bruce Lindahl between 1974 and his death in 1981,” Berlin said.
Law enforcement followed the methods used in 2018 to identify and arrest the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist in California.
Thank you to a reader for sending this link.
A few points:
1. 1976 case.
2. Look at the efforts made by this small, suburban police department over the years to solve this young woman’s murder case.
3. Press conference to announce the resolution of the case by the DuPage County’s State’s Attorney even though this piece of shit is long dead. He died in 1981 when he accidentally cut his own femoral artery while fatally stabbing an 18-year-old high school student. There’s some Karma for you.
4. When Oakland County officials and the FBI exhumed David Norberg in Wyoming for DNA testing in 1999 they found his DNA “did not match pubic hair found on 11-year-old Timothy King . . . ” https://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/wyoming/dna-does-not-link-wyoming-suspect-to-child-killings/article_09bf037b-a13a-57e3-b2a2-da97f541bcf2.html. No mention of the hair found on Kristine. No mention of the hair found on Mark. No mention of the hair found in the “Pontiac debris” (Arch Sloan’s red, 1966 Pontiac Bonneville). So now that these hairs have all magically appeared, how about treating them the way they did in the Golden State Killer case and the murder of this young, vibrant high school junior in 1976?
WHY HAVEN’T YOU DONE THIS? If this hair evidence cannot be evaluated in the most cutting-edge way possible (we’ve talked about this before . . .), tell us why! If you have multiple hairs (Mark, Tim, the hairs in the Pontiac) and they all are from the same source, as you have told the public, there should not be an issue with extinguishing the evidence. You have more than one hair.
Are the OCCK victims not worthy of figuring out how to use genetic geneology in this case? How can you justify not making the attempt?