DNA SOLVED - The Seven Cold Cases DNA Refused to Leave Unsolved

[00:00:00]The most extraordinary feature of the case known as the Sumpter County does is that modern DNA restored two names in roughly two days after conventional investigation had failed for more than 44 years. [music] On August 9th, 1976, a truck driver found a young man and woman dead beside Lach Lair Road, a narrow frontage road near Interstate 95 between Sumpter and Florence, South Carolina. A nearby resident had heard a vehicle and gunshots during the early morning. Both victims had been shot repeatedly and neither carried identification or money. [music] No missing person report available to local investigators could be connected to them. They entered the files as an unidentified couple. The woman called Jane Doe and the man nicknamed Jock Doe, [music] leaving detectives unable to reconstruct their movements, relationships, or possible enemies.

[00:00:54]Later, official reporting clarified that each victim had suffered three gunshot wounds to the upper chest. No wallet, driver's license, cash, or vehicle belonging to either victim was recovered. [music] Their deaths were treated as a double homicide. While the lack of names forced investigators to conduct a national search instead of examining a defined circle of relatives and acquaintances, the crime scene suggested that the pair had been killed near the place where they were discovered. But authorities could not establish how they arrived there, whether they had been traveling in their own vehicle or whether someone had removed property after the shooting.

[00:01:31][clears throat] The pair appeared young, healthy, well-groomed, and carefully dressed. Their dental work indicated professional care, leading investigators to believe they may have come from comfortable families. [music] The man wore a ring engraved with the initials JPF, one of the strongest clues recovered. Other belongings inspired speculation that the pair had traveled widely or might have been foreign visitors. A witness claimed to have encountered a similar couple and believed the man used the name Jock or a similar sounding name, strengthening theories that he was French Canadian.

[00:02:07][music] Fingerprints, dental charts, photographs, physical descriptions, and facial reconstructions were circulated, but the clues generated possibilities rather than names. Because the victims resembled one another and died together, authorities initially considered whether they were siblings. Others assumed they were lovers or traveling companions.

[00:02:28]Although no evidence established the nature of their relationship, potential matches were eliminated through dental records, fingerprints, photographs, or conflicting biographical details.

[00:02:39]Theories involving Canada, Europe, wealthy families, hitchhiking, and cross-country travel accumulated, but none established where the pair met or why they were on Lair Road. The assumption that they were foreigners became especially persistent because their clothing and apparent access to dental care did not fit the image investigators associated with unidentified transients. The bodies were discovered soon after death and their faces remained identifiable. Yet no one recognized them. They were kept at a funeral home while authorities sought an identification. When none came, the community arranged their burial at Bethl United Methodist Church Cemetery in Oswiggo, South Carolina in August 1977.

[00:03:23]Their markers identified them only as an unknown male and unknown female. Coroner Vera Moore and other officials preserved the case through decades of changing forensic technology. The mystery persisted because fingerprints and dental information required comparison with the correct people and no system placed the South Carolina victims beside the missing person files that later proved decisive. Members of the local church continued caring for the graves even though the people buried there remained strangers to the community. In 2007, the remains were exumed so investigators could obtain DNA. Testing proved that the victims were not biologically related, eliminating the sibling theory, [music] but it did not reveal their names. Conventional forensic DNA profiling is most effective when police possess a direct sample from a known person or close relative. No confirmed family was available, and the profiles produced no automatic identification. The exumation nevertheless preserved the genetic material that later allowed researchers to search through distant relatives rather than wait for a direct family comparison. It was the first major scientific correction to the case because it demonstrated that one of the investigation's oldest assumptions had been wrong. The decisive effort began after citizen researcher Matt McDaniel encouraged the Sumpter County Sheriff's Office to contact the nonprofit DNA Dough Project. The agency connected with the organization in June 2019. Donations funded the recovery of DNA suitable for forensic genetic genealogy, which requires many more markers than a standard law enforcement profile. Astria Forensics received skeletal material in July 2020 and used a specialized extraction method. The DNA was then sequenced and biioinformatics specialist Kevin Lord converted the data into files compatible with genealogy databases.

[00:05:21][music] The process depended on cooperation between the sheriff's office, specialist laboratories, sequencing experts, database providers, and volunteer genealogologists. The profiles were uploaded to GEDnH and family tree DNA. Researchers were not searching for someone whose DNA matched either victim exactly. [music] They examined users who shared smaller portions of DNA with each victim, estimated possible relationships, and constructed family trees through public records. Birth and marriage certificates, obituaries, census information, addresses, school records, and missing person files helped reduce large networks of distant relatives to candidates matching the victim's ages, appearance, geographic history, and disappearance dates. [music] Ged match produced relatives of interest, but the breakthrough accelerated when family tree DNA results became available. The DNA Dough Project reported that both teams reached likely identities rapidly after 44 years without names. The decisive genealogical work was completed in about 2 days [music] once the most useful matches became available. The candidates were Pamela May Buckley and James Paul Finn. Genealogical research alone was not treated as final proof.

[00:06:43]Their names were provided to the Sumpter County Sheriff's Office, which reviewed missing person information, compared biographical details, [music] and obtained confirmation connected to their families. Buckley was born in 1951 in Redwood County, Minnesota. Later moved to Colorado, [music] married, and was associated with Colorado Springs when she disappeared. Her family reported her missing in 1975.

[00:07:09]Freed was born in 1946 in Fitsburg, Massachusetts, and later lived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he completed school. He also disappeared and was reported missing in 1975.

[00:07:22]Their ages, physical characteristics, histories, and family DNA aligned with the unidentified victims. One detail made Freyn's identification particularly striking. The initials engraved inside the man's ring, JPF, matched James Paul Freedin exactly. Investigators had possessed a direct clue to his full name since the day his body was found. Yet, they had no reliable way to connect those initials with a missing man from Pennsylvania. Once genetic genealogy supplied Frey's identity, the inscriptions ceased to be an unexplained marking and became physical confirmation that the correct person had finally been located. The clue showed that the investigation had not failed because the victims left no trace of themselves, but because the relevant records remained separated by geography, incompatible systems, and the limitations of pre-digital police work. On January 21st, 2021, [music] the Sumpter County Sheriff's Office and the DNA Doe Project announced that Jane Doe was Pamela May Buckley and Jock Doe was James Paul Finn. Buckley was 25 and Freed was 30 when they were killed.

[00:08:34]Their identification joined records that had remained separate for decades. Two missing person cases from different states and a double homicide discovered the following year in South Carolina. It also disproved the assumption that they were foreign tourists. Both were Americans, but their connections to Minnesota, Colorado, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania explain why a local investigation struggled to locate the correct families before modern databases and forensic genealogy. The announcement provided answers to families who had reported Buckley and Freed missing in 1975 and had lived for more than four decades without knowing where they were.

[00:09:15]It also allowed the church community to replace anonymous descriptions with real names if the families chose to leave the remains in South Carolina. Sheriff Anthony Dennis emphasized that identification provided a measure of closure, but it also reopened the investigative possibilities surrounding the murders. For the first time, detectives could trace where Buckley and Freud had been during the months between their disappearances and deaths, determine whether they had traveled together, identify people who knew them, and reconsider old evidence against a documented timeline. At the 2021 announcement, Dennis said investigators had potential suspects they intended to examine and believe the murders were likely an isolated incident. No one was publicly charged with killing Buckley and Finn, meaning DNA solved the identification mystery, but not the double homicide. The circumstances of their relationship remain uncertain, as does the route that brought them together to South Carolina. Authorities have not publicly established whether they were hitchhiking, traveling in a vehicle later taken by the killer, or meeting someone they already knew. Their identities created new avenues of investigation, but they did not automatically reveal the final hours before the shooting.

[00:10:33]For decades, several women believed to have been murdered by Samuel Little existed in official records only as unidentified bodies, incomplete police reports, or fragments of memory supplied by the man who claimed to have killed them. The central mystery was not the identity of the killer. Little had already been convicted, linked to multiple homicides through DNA, and eventually confessed to 93 murders committed between 1970 and 2005.

[00:11:02]The unresolved question was whether investigators could determine who every victim had been. By 2019, the FBI's violent criminal apprehension program had verified 50 confessions and considered the remainder credible enough to continue examining. Texas authorities later reported that more than 60 had been definitively matched to victims through DNA evidence or extensively corroborated interviews. The remaining accounts presented a different kind of cold case. Investigators sometimes possessed a confession without a known body, a body without a name, or a description that could not yet be connected to any documented disappearance.

[00:11:42]Little's crimes remained disconnected for so long, partly because he selected women whose disappearances were less likely to produce coordinated investigations.

[00:11:52]Many were living in poverty, experiencing homelessness, using drugs, or involved in commercial sex. Some had become separated from relatives, or were moving between cities when they disappeared. Little usually attacked without a firearm or knife, commonly beating or strangling his victims, which could leave fewer obvious signs than penetrating injuries. According to the FBI, several deaths were initially classified as overdoses, accidents, or cases involving undetermined causes, while some bodies were never recovered.

[00:12:25]The murders were also scattered across numerous states and jurisdictions over more than three decades. Before national databases and modern digital case management, a detective investigating an unidentified woman in one city might have had no practical way to connect her death to a similar case hundreds of miles away. Little's mobility turned local failures of identification into a national pattern that remained largely invisible until investigators compared his travel history, criminal records, confessions, and known homicide files.

[00:12:58]The investigation changed after Little was arrested at a homeless shelter in Kentucky in September 2012 and extradited to California on a narcotics warrant. Los Angeles detectives obtained DNA matches connecting him to three previously unsolved murders committed in 1987 and 1989. The victims were Carol Alfred, Audrey Nelson, and Guadalupe Apadaka, all of whom had been found in the Los Angeles area. Little was convicted of the three murders in 2014 and received three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. These DNA matches established that cases once treated as isolated killings were connected to the same offender, but they did not reveal the full scale of his crimes. That expansion came in 2018 when Texas Ranger James Holland began conducting lengthy interviews with Little. Instead of questioning him only about one jurisdiction, Holland asked him to reconstruct decades of travel and violence. little described encounters, locations, disposal sites, physical features, clothing, and details that had not always appeared in public reporting.

[00:14:09]Investigators then compared those memories with archived homicide and missing person files. Little's memory was unusually visual. While imprisoned, he produced colored portraits of women he claimed to have killed, often depicting hairstyles, skin tones, facial shapes, jewelry, or expressions he remembered from encounters decades earlier. The FBI released portraits and recorded confession excerpts. Because conventional investigative searches had failed to identify several women, these drawings were not treated as proof by themselves. A resemblance could generate a lead, but confirmation required independent facts such as geography, dates, autopsy findings, witness information, travel records, or biological evidence. Little also confused some dates and locations, making corroboration essential. Even so, investigators found that he often remembered details that aligned closely with old case files. The unusual structure of the inquiry meant that police were not beginning with an unknown offender and working toward a suspect. They already had the offender's account and were working backward, attempting to locate an unidentified body, a missing woman, or a forgotten file that matched what he described. One of the clearest examples involved a woman found dead near Mon, Georgia in 1977. Her remains were discovered beside a road close to a wooded area, but authorities could not determine her identity. Little later described killing a black woman in the Mon area during the same period. He remembered meeting her at a local establishment, strangling her, and leaving her body near a road.

[00:15:51]His account contained enough geographical and physical detail for investigators to associate the confession with the unidentified 1977 victim. Yet, the homicide could not be fully resolved. While her name remained unknown, traditional searches of fingerprints, dental information, [music] missing person reports, and standard DNA databases produced no identification. The evidence established a probable connection between Little and the death, but it could not reconnect the victim to the life she had lived before the crime. The breakthrough came through forensic investigative genetic genealogy. Unlike a conventional forensic search, which usually compares a short DNA profile against known offender or missing person records, genetic genealogy requires the development of a much larger genetic profile from biological material.

[00:16:41]Analysts search databases that permit law enforcement use for individuals who share sections of DNA with the unidentified person. Those matches may belong to distant relatives rather than parents or siblings. Genealogologists examine family trees, historical records, marriages, births, deaths, migration patterns, and the ages and locations of possible relatives. The purpose is not to declare an identity directly from a distant match, but to narrow the field until investigators can locate a plausible candidate and obtain confirmatory evidence from a close biological relative. In the Georgia case, advanced testing produced genealogical leads that ultimately pointed to Avon Ples. Investigators then secured a DNA sample from a relative, and the comparison confirmed that the woman found in 1977 was Ples. Her identification was publicly announced in May 2023, [music] more than 45 years after her death. Ples had lived in Mon and was approximately 20 years old when she was killed. Her identification did more than place a name on an old autopsy file. It joined two investigations that had developed separately. The unidentified remains case preserved by Georgia authorities and Little's later confession. The genealogical result did not independently prove every part of his statement, but it allowed investigators to test his description against a real person whose age, location, and death corresponded with the account he had provided. The case demonstrates why DNA may solve only one part of a cold case. Little's DNA identified him as the killer in the Los Angeles prosecutions. While P's DNA was used decades later to determine the identity of a victim. These are separate forensic questions. One asks who left biological evidence connected to a crime. The other asks who the unknown deceased person was. Not every unresolved confession can be solved by the same method. Forensic genealogy requires recoverable biological material and remains exposed to heat, water, soil, chemicals, or decades of decomposition may contain highly damaged DNA. Some bodies described by little have never been located, leaving nothing to test. In other cases, the original remains or evidence may have been lost, destroyed, [music] cremated, or buried in a location that cannot be established. Genealogical research also depends on useful relative matches and accurate documentary records. A distant genetic connection may lead to a large family with many possible candidates.

[00:19:25]While adoption, informal name changes, incomplete [music] birth records, and migration can complicate reconstruction. Investigators must still confirm a proposed identification through direct family DNA, dental comparisons, fingerprints, medical records, or another independent method. A family tree lead is an investigative direction rather than a final scientific conclusion. Little died in a California hospital on December 30th, 2020 while serving life sentences, but his death did not close the unmatched cases. Investigators retained recorded interviews, portraits, maps, timelines, [music] descriptions, and details from years of questioning. The FBI and participating agencies released selected material to the public because relatives, former friends, social workers, medical personnel, or local investigators might recognize a face, nickname, location, or circumstance. Texas authorities continued publishing information about unresolved confessions, including Little's estimates of when and where killings occurred and descriptions of victims whose identities remained uncertain. Each public release acknowledged the limitations of his memory, while preserving details that could be compared with missing person reports and unidentified remains cases created long before agencies understood that they might belong to one series.

[00:20:52]Beth Doe is one of the most extraordinary cold cases ever solved through forensic genetic genealogy because the victim remained unidentified for more than 44 years despite extensive investigations, [music] repeated facial reconstructions, nationwide publicity, and comparisons with missing person records. The breakthrough did not come from a confession, a forgotten witness, or newly discovered physical evidence.

[00:21:19]Instead, it came from advanced DNA sequencing and family tree research that restored the victim's identity as Evelyn Cologne, a 15-year-old girl who had disappeared in 1976 while pregnant with her first child. Her identification transformed one of America's most famous Jane Doe cases into a homicide investigation with a named victim, a reconstructed timeline, and a suspect identified decades after the crime. On December 20th, 1976, a group of children playing beneath the Interstate 80 bridge near Lehigh River in Carbon County, Pennsylvania, discovered three abandoned suitcases.

[00:22:00]Inside were the dismembered remains of a young female. Investigators determined that the body had been carefully cut into multiple sections before being placed inside the luggage and discarded below the bridge. The condition of the remains immediately indicated that someone had taken deliberate steps to conceal the victim's identity and complicate the investigation. Medical examination established that the victim had been killed by liature strangulation before her body was dismembered. The autopsy also revealed another crucial fact that made the case even more disturbing. She was approximately 8 to 9 months pregnant when she died and the unborn child also perished. Forensic specialists estimated that the victim was between 15 and 20 years old, stood approximately 5 feet tall, and possessed distinctive physical characteristics that investigators hoped would lead to identification. Isotope analysis and skeletal examination suggested that she had likely spent much of her childhood outside the continental United States, possibly in southern or southeastern Europe. Later studies also indicated Hispanic ancestry. a conclusion that significantly altered the direction of the investigation because early assumptions had focused on local missing person reports from Pennsylvania and neighboring states. Despite these findings, no missing juvenile matched the available evidence. The investigation quickly became one of Pennsylvania's most challenging homicide cases. Detectives distributed photographs, forensic illustrations, dental information, and detailed physical descriptions across law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. They compared fingerprints, dental records, and hundreds of missing person files. None produced a match. As forensic science advanced through the 1980s and 1990s, investigators revisited the evidence repeatedly. New facial reconstructions were created using updated techniques, each intended to generate fresh public leads. Those reconstructions received national media attention. Yet, every promising lead eventually reached a [music] dead end. The victim gradually became known simply as Beth Doe, a placeholder name assigned because no one knew who she really was. Although she had never been reported missing under that name, the nickname became attached to the investigation for decades. Her case appeared in newspapers, television crime programs, law enforcement bulletins, and databases dedicated to unidentified human remains. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children later produced additional forensic facial reconstructions based on improvements in anthropological methods.

[00:24:44]Even with broader publicity and better technology, investigators still lacked the single piece of information that mattered most, the victim's real identity. Traditional forensic methods had reached their limits. DNA profiling confirmed biological characteristics, but could not identify a person without a matching reference sample. Because no close relatives were known, there was no direct comparison available. The case therefore remained unsolved through multiple generations of investigators.

[00:25:15]Detectives preserved biological evidence with the expectation that future scientific advances might eventually succeed where earlier techniques had failed. That decision proved critical because advances in next generation DNA sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy emerged decades later. In 2020, the Carbon County District Attorney's Office partnered with Oram, a forensic laboratory specializing in recovering usable genetic information from highly degraded human remains.

[00:25:47]Scientists extracted DNA from preserved evidence and produced a comprehensive genetic profile, despite the age and condition of the sample. Instead of searching criminal DNA databases for an exact match, investigators used forensic genetic genealogy, comparing the unknown profile with voluntarily submitted DNA from public genealogy databases were permitted by law. Rather than identifying the victim directly, the process identified distant biological relatives whose family trees could be reconstructed generation by generation.

[00:26:21]Professional genealogologists combined DNA relationships with birth certificates, census records, marriage licenses, immigration records, death certificates, and historical family documents. As multiple family branches were traced to a Puerto Rican family connected to New Jersey, one branch contained a teenage girl named Evelyn Coen who had disappeared in 1976.

[00:26:47]Her family had never known what happened to her. Further investigation confirmed that she had been pregnant when she vanished and had been living with her boyfriend before her disappearance. The timeline aligned precisely with the estimated time of death established during the original autopsy. In April 2021, authorities publicly announced that Beth Doe had finally been identified as Evelyn Cologne. She was 15 years old when she died and had been carrying a full-term baby boy.

[00:27:16]Investigators determined that she had left her family in Jersey City, New Jersey [music] to live with her boyfriend, Luis Sierra. According to investigators, Evelyn's family later received misleading explanations about her disappearance and believed she had chosen to leave voluntarily because they never learned the truth. Her disappearance was never connected to the unidentified homicide victim found in Pennsylvania. The successful identification ended 44 years of uncertainty and demonstrated the growing power of forensic genetic genealogy in resolving long unsolved cases. Once Evelyn's identity was confirmed, detectives shifted their focus from identifying the victim to reconstructing the final weeks of her life. interviews, historical records, and witness statements consistently pointed toward Luis Sierra, who had been romantically involved with Evelyn [music] and was believed to be the father of her unborn child. Investigators concluded that the homicide most likely occurred in New Jersey before the body was transported across state lines and [music] abandoned beneath the Interstate 80 bridge in Carbon County. In July 2021, Pennsylvania authorities charged Sierra with criminal homicide, abuse of a corpse, and related offenses based on the evidence developed after Evelyn's identification.

[00:28:39]The legal proceedings introduced an unexpected complication. Defense attorneys argued that Pennsylvania lacked jurisdiction because investigators believed the murder itself had occurred in New Jersey while only the disposal of the body took place in Pennsylvania. After reviewing the available evidence, the Pennsylvania court concluded that prosecutors could not establish beyond legal requirements that the homicide had occurred within Pennsylvania's jurisdiction. As a result, the charges filed in Pennsylvania were dismissed. The dismissal did not overturn Evelyn Cologne's identification, [music] nor did it dispute the forensic genealogy that solved her identity. Instead, it reflected a jurisdictional limitation concerning where the homicide could legally be prosecuted.

[00:29:26]On July 21st, 1999, a father and daughter walking their dog along 92nd Street in Raymond, Wisconsin, found a young woman's body near the first rows of a cornfield. She carried no identification, wore no shoes, and had no belongings that explained who she was or why she had been left there.

[00:29:46]Investigators determined that she had died shortly before discovery and that her body had been dragged about 25 ft from the roadside. Rain had fallen after she was abandoned, damaging possible trace evidence and leaving detectives with few clues about the vehicle or person responsible. Her right arm was positioned unnaturally behind her, and the condition of her body showed that this was not an accidental death. The autopsy documented prolonged abuse rather than a single fatal assault. The woman was severely malnourished, had broken bones in different stages of healing, and had burns across a significant portion of her body. [music] Later accounts of the medical findings reported that infection associated with those injuries developed into septic pneumonia. untreated trauma, burns, neglect, [music] and infections supported a homicide ruling and indicated that she had suffered for an extended period. Fingerprints and dental information produced no match. Missing person reports were checked, facial reconstructions were circulated, and her clothing and physical characteristics were publicized. Yet, no relative identified her. The victim became known as Rine County Jane Doe. More than 50 people attended her funeral in October 1999, although none knew her name. She was buried at Holy Family Cemetery in Calonia beneath a headstone marked daughter Jane Doe and gone but not forgotten. Detectives compared her profile with missing women from several states, but possible identities were excluded through records or DNA. The absence of a matching report created the central obstacle. Investigators were searching for a killer without knowing whether the victim had ever been officially reported missing. As forensic methods improved, authorities returned to the evidence. In October 2013, her remains were exumed for further examination. Specialists studied bone and hair samples while the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children produced an updated facial reconstruction.

[00:31:50]Isotope testing later suggested that she might have spent time in Alaska, Montana, or parts of southern Canada.

[00:31:57]The result generated leads, but no identity, showing the limitation of geographic testing. It could suggest where someone had lived without revealing her name. Her DNA profile remained the most reliable link to surviving relatives, but investigators still needed a meaningful comparison.

[00:32:15]The decisive break came in September 2019 when the Rine County Sheriff's Office received information about a woman from Mckenry, Illinois, who had disappeared years earlier. The tip also directed attention toward Linda Sue Lar Ro, a former nurse who had allegedly told people that she had killed a woman while living in Illinois. Investigators reconstructed the missing woman's background and obtained DNA for comparison. The genetic evidence confirmed that Rine County Jane Doe was Peggy Lynn Johnson, a 23-year-old from Northern Illinois. Authorities publicly restored her identity on November 8th, 2019, 20 years after her body was found.

[00:32:56]Peggy's history explained why her disappearance had left such a weak official trail. She had cognitive limitations and lost the people on whom she depended at a young age. Her father and brother had died and after her mother's death in 1994, 18-year-old Peggy was left without stable housing or support. She sought help at a medical clinic where she met Linda Lar Ro, a registered nurse. Lar Ro offered her a place to live in the family home in Mckenry in exchange for work as a housekeeper and nanny. No police missing person report was filed when Peggy vanished. An aunt placed a newspaper notice asking her to make contact, [music] but that private effort was never connected to the unidentified body across the state line. Once Peggy had a name, detectives could investigate the household where she spent her final years. Statements from Lar Roa's former husband, children, and other witnesses described repeated mistreatment. Peggy performed domestic work and cared for children, but witnesses said she was struck, insulted, deprived of proper food, and forced to sleep in poor conditions. One child recalled asking Peggy about an injury to her face, and hearing an account of abuse. These statements matched the autopsy findings of old and recent fractures, malnutrition, burns, [music] and untreated injuries. Lar Roa's medical training was significant because she would have understood the seriousness of Peggy's condition.

[00:34:22]According to the criminal complaint and later testimony, Lar Ro's former husband returned home in July 1999 and found Peggy unresponsive. Lar Ro claimed that Peggy had taken medication and may have overdosed, but the physical evidence did not support an ordinary accidental death. The husband said Lar Ro sent him away with their children while she dealt with the body. [music] Prosecutors argued that Lar Ro trans transported Peggy from Illinois into Wisconsin, pulled her from the vehicle, and abandoned her beside the cornfield in Raymond. The disposal site placed the case in another jurisdiction where detectives had no name, no local missing person file, and no immediate connection to the Mckenry household. Lar Ro was arrested in Cape Coral, Florida on November 5th, 2019. Investigators said she gave inconsistent accounts of Peggy's disappearance and death. She was charged in Wisconsin with first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse. The prosecution did not rely on DNA from the dumping site to identify the killer. DNA solved the identity problem by confirming Peggy's name. The murder case was then built from autopsy evidence, witness statements, the documented history of abuse, Lar Ro's own statements, and the circumstances surrounding disposal of the body. The trial began in Racine County in March 2022 after delays that included the CO 19 pandemic. Lar Ro denied intentionally killing Peggy and maintained that Peggy may have died after taking medication.

[00:35:55]Prosecutors presented the injuries as evidence of systematic abuse and neglect [music] rather than an unexplained overdose. Household witnesses described Lar Ro's control over Peggy and the violence they had observed before her death. On March 16th, 2022, the jury unanimously found Lar Ro guilty of firstdegree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse. On May 23rd, the judge sentenced her to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

[00:36:24]The case began during the first hours of January 1st, 1990 [music] inside a small apartment in Copenhagen's Nurabro district. 23-year-old Hana With had spent part of New Year's Eve in the city before returning to her home on Fence Marada. Later that night, a man entered the apartment with her. Before morning, Hana had been subjected to a prolonged and violent attack. She suffered numerous stab wounds, injuries to her head and neck, and strangulation with an antenna cable taken from inside the apartment. When her body was discovered, the attacker was gone, leaving investigators with a bloodcovered crime scene, but no confirmed identity.

[00:37:06]Copenhagen police immediately treated the death as murder. Investigators documented the apartment, questioned people who had seen HY during the night, and attempted to reconstruct her final movements. The timing presented a serious difficulty. Copenhagen had been crowded with New Year celebrations, alcohol, taxis, and people moving between bars, homes, and parties.

[00:37:30]Statements collected after the killing indicated that Hane had traveled by taxi with a male customer [music] shortly before returning to her apartment, but the information available did not produce a name that police could prove belonged to the killer. The physical evidence showed that the confrontation had been exceptionally violent. The prosecution would later describe how Hannah had been stabbed repeatedly and strangled with the cable. Blood traces were secured from her trousers and biological material was also preserved from the antenna cable. Investigators additionally recorded footwear impressions inside the apartment. These traces would eventually become central to the case, but in 1990, forensic DNA analysis was still at an early stage.

[00:38:14]Denmark did not yet have the combination of advanced profiling methods, national DNA records, and familial search rules that would be needed to identify the unknown man. Police pursued leads connected to Han's movements, acquaintances, and work. A large number of people were interviewed, and investigators examined men who might have been with her during the night. One potential lead came from an anonymous caller who claimed to possess information about a man connected to the killing. The tip included a possible association with vocational training in the meat industry, but it did not give police enough verifiable evidence to identify and prosecute a suspect.

[00:38:53]Without a reliable witness identification, confession, fingerprint match, or forensic link to a known person, the investigation gradually lost momentum. The preserved biological material nevertheless gave the case something many older investigations lacked. A genetic profile believed to belong to the offender. As forensic techniques improved, specialists at the Department of Forensic Genetics were able to develop a usable DNA profile from material found on Hannah's trousers. The profile could be compared with people entered in Denmark's police DNA register, but repeated conventional searches failed to produce a direct match. The result meant that the man who left the material was apparently not represented in the database under a qualifying profile. For decades, the evidence existed without identifying its owner. A standard database search asks whether the unknown crime scene profile matches a registered individual. If the offender has never supplied a sample or if his sample is not legally retained, the search returns nothing even when the profile itself is clear. This limitation explains why the Hanwith investigation remained unresolved despite possessing DNA connected to the crime. The scientific evidence could exclude people and confirm that the same unknown profile appeared on relevant objects, but it could not independently provide a name. Cold case investigators continued to preserve and review the file as Danish forensic capabilities developed.

[00:40:28]The decisive legal and technical change came when police received broader authority to conduct familial DNA searches in serious investigations.

[00:40:37]Instead of looking only for a complete match, specialists could examine whether part of an unidentified profile showed the genetic relationship expected between close relatives. Parents and children inherit approximately half of their autotosomal DNA from one another.

[00:40:53]So, a registered person may point investigators toward an unregistered parent, child, or sibling. Such a result does not establish guilt. It creates an investigative lead that must be tested with a direct sample and supported by other evidence. In 2023, investigators applied this approach to the unidentified profile from Hane's trousers. The search indicated a close biological relationship between the unknown contributor and a person whose DNA was already contained in the police register. Investigators examined that person's family and focused on his father, Henrik Cro Rasmusen, who had been 19 years old at the time of the murder. Rasmusen was living and working in northern Jutland, far from the Copenhagen apartment where Hana had died 34 years earlier. The familial result gave police a name, but they still needed to determine whether his own DNA matched the preserved evidence. Police arrested the 53-year-old Rasmusen at his workplace on February 6th, 2024. A direct DNA sample was taken from him and analyzed the same day. According to Copenhagen police, the result matched the profile recovered from Hana and the biological trace found on the antenna cable in her apartment. This was no longer a prediction based on a relative's partial genetic similarity.

[00:42:15]It was a direct comparison between Rasmusen's sample and material preserved from the murder scene. The location of the DNA gave the result particular importance. The matching profile was not recovered from a public surface or an object with an obvious innocent explanation. It was associated with Hannah's clothing and with the cable used during the attack. Investigators therefore had evidence placing Rasmuson in direct contact with materials central to the crime. Police also compared the footwear evidence documented in 1990 with information connected to Rasmuson.

[00:42:51]The technical findings were combined with renewed witness interviews and an examination of his movements and background at the time. Rasmuson denied killing Hane. He acknowledged that he had been in Copenhagen around the relevant period, but disputed the prosecution's interpretation of the evidence. The defense argued that the presence of DNA could not by itself reconstruct everything that occurred inside the apartment and challenged the reliability of conclusions drawn more than three decades after the event. The prosecution maintained that the direct DNA match, its appearance on both Han and the antenna cable, the footwear evidence, and the historical circumstances formed a coherent body of proof that could not reasonably be explained by an innocent encounter. On April 9th, 2024, Copenhagen police announced that Rasmusen had been formally charged with Hanaith's murder.

[00:43:46]The indictment alleged that he had attacked her in the apartment during the early hours of January 1st, 1990, striking and stabbing her before strangling her with the antenna cable.

[00:43:57]The case proceeded before Copenhagen City Court, where judges examined the preserved forensic material, expert testimony concerning the DNA analysis, the original police investigation, and Rasmusen's statements. The court also had to consider the passage of time.

[00:44:14]Witness memories had weakened. Some people connected to the original investigation were no longer available, and investigators could not recreate every event of the night with the precision possible. In a recent case, the prosecution did not claim that familial DNA alone solved those problems. The familial search had identified Rasmusen as a candidate, while the direct sample taken after his arrest provided the evidential match.

[00:44:39]Experts explained that the profile obtained from the crime scene corresponded with Rasmusen's DNA and that the material had been recovered from more than one significant location.

[00:44:50]On July 10th, 2024, Copenhagen City Court found the 54year-old Rasmusen guilty of murdering Hana with the judges concluded that the combined forensic and circumstantial evidence proved that he was the man who had been inside the apartment and carried out the fatal attack. The direct DNA match was the central identification evidence, while its position on the victim and the antenna cable connected it to the violence rather than merely to Rasmusen's presence in Copenhagen. The court sentenced him to 11 years and 6 months in prison. The sentence reflected Danish law and sentencing practice applicable to a murder committed in 1990 rather than the penalties that might be imposed under later standards. Rasmusen had lived most of his adult life without being identified as the offender, but the biological traces preserved by investigators remained capable of linking him to the crime once the law permitted a search through close genetic relationships.

[00:45:51]The Hanwith investigation became the first Danish murder case publicly associated with a successful familial search of the National Police DNA register. Its significance lies in the separation between the method that generated the lead and the evidence that produced the conviction. The relative's profile did not prove that Rasmuson committed the murder and was not presented as a substitute for his own DNA. It narrowed the investigation to a family after which police obtained a lawful direct sample from Rasmusen and matched it to the traces collected in 1990.

[00:46:27]The case began during the night of April 30th to May 1st, 1999 when 16-year-old Maryanne Vodstra left a Queen's Day celebration in Colum and set out for her family home in D Westerine in the Dutch province of Frezeland. She was traveling alone by bicycle through a sparsely populated rural area. When she failed to return, concern quickly became a search.

[00:46:52]On May 1st, her body was discovered in a meadow near Finkelster, close to the route she had been expected to take. The examination of the scene established that she had been sexually assaulted and killed. Her throat had been cut, and investigators recovered biological traces, including semen and blood, that produced a DNA profile belonging to an unknown man. From the beginning, police therefore possessed evidence capable of identifying the offender with great precision. The problem was that no name was attached to it. The murder caused immediate fear across the surrounding villages. A reception center for asylum seekers was located near Colum and suspicion soon focused on its residents despite the absence of a forensic match.

[00:47:37]In August 1999, investigators concentrated on an Iraqi asylum seeker who had left the center around the time of the killing and was later located and arrested in Istanbul. DNA testing excluded him. Another asylum seeker, an Afghan man, was also investigated and eliminated by genetic evidence. Their exclusion demonstrated that the strongest public theory was not supported by the biological material recovered from Maryanne's body and the crime scene, but the controversy had already shaped the case and diverted public attention toward the center.

[00:48:12]Police also investigated local men. In late May 1999, a 32-year-old resident of D Westerine was arrested, then released after his DNA failed to match the unknown profile. He became the first of a series of suspects who were detained or examined and subsequently excluded.

[00:48:30]By the end of the investigation, at least 12 suspects had been arrested, while DNA samples had been collected from hundreds of people. In December 1999, police organized an early voluntary DNA sweep involving 170 men from the area. 162 participated, but none matched. The surviving DNA profile remained the central piece of evidence, repeatedly eliminating suspects without revealing the person who had left it. In 2000, investigators released a behavioral and geographic assessment suggesting that the killer was probably a white Western European man who likely lived within 15 km of the scene. That assessment contradicted the assumption that the offender had necessarily come from the asylum center. Even so, conventional investigative methods produced no breakthrough. The case was closed, reopened in 2002 for another review, and closed again after the renewed inquiry failed to connect the DNA profile to an identified individual.

[00:49:34]The evidence was preserved, but the national DNA database contained no matching offender, which strongly suggested that the killer had never been required to submit a profile through a previous qualifying conviction. For the next decade, Maryanne's family continued pressing for a new investigation. The central obstacle was clear. A direct DNA comparison could identify the killer only if police already possessed his sample or if his profile entered a database. Familial searching offered another route by looking for genetic similarities, indicating that a tested man might belong to the offender's paternal family line. The legal basis for large-scale familial DNA searching in the Netherlands came into effect in May 2012. The Vatra investigation became the first Dutch case in which the new authority was used on such a major scale. Because the Y chromosome is passed largely unchanged from father to son, men belonging to the same paternal family line can share a closely related Y chromosome profile. Investigators could therefore compare the offender's YDNA with samples from local men. A participant did not need to be the killer to create a lead. A shared paternal pattern could direct detectives toward his father, brothers, sons, uncles, or male cousins. This method turned thousands of voluntary samples into a map of possible family relationships rather than a search limited to exact matches. On September 29th, 2012, police began a mass DNA screening operation centered on a radius of about 5 km around the murder scene.

[00:51:17]Approximately 8,000 men were invited to participate. More than 6,500 provided cheek swab samples. The samples were examined for a direct match and for Y chromosome similarities that could identify a paternal relative of the offender. The operation was unprecedented in the Netherlands and raised major questions about collecting genetic material from thousands of men who were not suspects. Among those who volunteered was Jasper Stinga, a 45-year-old farmer who lived in Aldwald, roughly 2 and 1/2 km from the crime scene. He had remained outside the main line of suspicion for 13 years and had no DNA profile in the criminal database.

[00:51:59]Stinga understood that refusing the test would not necessarily protect him because a sample from a close male relative could reveal the family line.

[00:52:08]His own cheek swab produced the result detectives had been seeking since 1999.

[00:52:14]The DNA matched the biological profile recovered in the murder investigation.

[00:52:19]Police arrested Stinga at his farm on November 18th, 2012 and publicly announced the breakthrough the following day. The match connected him directly to the biological evidence that had excluded every major suspect before him.

[00:52:34]Shortly after his arrest, Steringa admitted the killing to his lawyer and later made a formal confession. During the proceedings, Stinga stated that he had encountered Maryanne as she traveled home and did not know her beforehand.

[00:52:48]According to his confession in court, he threatened her with a pocketk knife, forced her into the field, and raped her. He said he then strangled her with her bra and cut her throat because he feared the consequences if she identified him. His explanation that the attack arose from a sudden impulse became important at trial because the court had to determine his criminal responsibility and whether the killing constituted murder rather than an unplanned act committed without time for reflection. Psychiatric experts found Stinga criminally responsible. His trial opened in Lee Warden on March 28th, 2013. Prosecutors requested a 20-year prison sentence. On April 19th, 2013, the District Court of the Northern Netherlands convicted him of the rape and murder of Maryanne Vodstra and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. The court rejected the idea that he lacked an opportunity to reconsider his actions, concluding that after the rape, he had time to reflect before killing her. The judgment ended a case that had remained unresolved for almost 14 years.

[00:53:53]Even though the offender's genetic signature had been available from its first day, the solution demonstrated both the strength and the limit of forensic DNA. The original profile cleared innocent suspects and eventually identified Stinga, but it could not solve the murder. While investigators had nothing useful to compare it against, the breakthrough came when Dutch law allowed preserved biological evidence to be combined with Y chromosome analysis, familial searching, and voluntary regional screening. The offender was not a transient outsider, but a local man who had continued living near the scene while his anonymous DNA profile passed through 13 years of unsuccessful comparisons.

[00:54:37]On the evening of April 20th, 1997, 16-year-old Eva Blanco left her home in the quiet town of Algate, about 30 km north of Madrid, to meet a friend. She never arrived. [music] When she failed to return that night, her family reported her missing and local police launched an urgent search. Early the following morning, her body was discovered in a wooded area near a dirt path on the outskirts of town. The teenager had been stabbed repeatedly, and investigators confirmed that she had also been sexually assaulted. The brutality of the attack shocked Spain, particularly because Aljite had long been regarded as a safe commuter town, where violent crime was exceptionally rare. Within hours, investigators secured the crime scene and recovered biological evidence, including seaman left by the attacker. Despite the violence of the assault, a heavy rainfall during the night had washed away many other forms of physical evidence, including footprints, tire impressions, and trace material that might have identified the killer. From the first day of the investigation, detectives understood that the preserved DNA sample would likely become the most important piece of evidence in the entire case. Spanish forensic laboratories successfully developed a complete DNA profile from the biological evidence. a significant achievement for the late 1990s. However, the technology available at the time could identify a suspect only if that individual's DNA already existed in a criminal database or if investigators collected a direct comparison sample. Spain's national DNA database was still in its infancy, and very few offenders had genetic profiles on record. The investigators possessed what appeared to be conclusive evidence, but had no identity to attach to it.

[00:56:26]Thousands of interviews were conducted with local residents, construction workers, delivery drivers, seasonal laborers, and anyone known to have been in or around Algati during the period of the murder. Numerous suspects voluntarily provided DNA samples. Yet, every comparison returned negative. The investigation quickly became one of Spain's most frustrating unsolved homicide cases because detectives were convinced the killer had left enough evidence to be identified. But the available scientific infrastructure simply could not produce a match. As months turned into years, the investigation remained active instead of being formally abandoned. Officers from the Guardia Sevil repeatedly reviewed witness statements, reconstructed Ava's final movements, and re-examined the physical evidence using every improvement in forensic science that became available. The preserved DNA profile was periodically tested against newly added entries in Spain's expanding national database, but every search produced the same result. No match.

[00:57:30]Unlike many cold cases in which evidence deteriorates or is lost, Eva Blanco's investigation benefited from the careful preservation of the original biological sample, advances in laboratory techniques allowed scientists to confirm the quality of the genetic profile repeatedly, ensuring that investigators still possessed reliable forensic evidence nearly two decades after the murder. The case also remained in the public eye because Eva's family refused to let it disappear. Her parents repeatedly appealed for witnesses to come forward, participated in television interviews, and supported public campaigns encouraging anyone with information to contact authorities. The murder had deeply affected the residents of Aljet, and thousands of people publicly expressed their willingness to help identify the killer. Some residents even volunteered to provide DNA samples, hoping investigators could eliminate local suspects or identify the perpetrator through mass screening.

[00:58:27]Spanish legal procedures and investigative policies limited the use of large-scale compulsory DNA collection. So, detectives instead relied on targeted testing of individuals considered relevant to the investigation. Although these efforts failed to identify the murderer, they demonstrated the unusual level of community involvement surrounding the case and reinforced the belief that the attacker had likely passed through the town without attracting suspicion. A major breakthrough finally arrived, not because of a confession or a witness, but because forensic genetics had advanced dramatically since 1997.

[00:59:04]By the early 2010s, scientists could extract additional information from DNA beyond simple identity matching.

[00:59:12]Specialized forensic analysis indicated that the unknown profile was most consistent with ancestry originating from the Maghreb region of North Africa.

[00:59:21][music] This did not identify the killer by itself. but it significantly narrowed the pool of possible suspects.

[00:59:28]Investigators returned to historical records, examining employment documents, immigration files, residency information, and police records from individuals connected to Algett during the period of the murder whose backgrounds match the new forensic assessment. The investigation shifted from thousands of unrelated names to a much smaller group of individuals who could realistically have been present in the area when Eva disappeared.

[00:59:54]Detectives then began collecting DNA samples from members of this reduced suspect group. One comparison produced an unexpected but highly significant result. The sample did not belong to the killer. Yet forensic analysis showed a close biological relationship with the unknown DNA profile. strongly indicating that the donor was an immediate male relative of the attacker, most likely a brother. This discovery transformed the investigation overnight. By reconstructing the donor's family tree, detectives identified another sibling, Ahmed Chel Jurge, a Moroccan-born man who had lived in Alged at the time of the murder before later moving to France. Investigators obtained his DNA for comparison with the evidence preserved from the crime scene. The laboratory analysis confirmed a complete match with the genetic material recovered from Eva Blanco's body nearly 18 years earlier. The single piece of biological evidence collected in April 1997 had finally revealed the identity of the man who had remained anonymous for almost two decades. In September 2015, French authorities arrested Ahmed Chella Gurge under a European arrest warrant issued by Spain. He was extradited to face prosecution for Eva Blanco's murder. During questioning, he denied responsibility for the killing despite the DNA evidence linking him directly to the sexual assault. Reports indicated that he attempted to explain the presence of his DNA by claiming he had engaged in consensual sexual activity with Eva, a statement investigators considered incompatible with the evidence gathered during the original homicide investigation, including the nature of her injuries and the circumstances in which her body was found. Prosecutors prepared to present one of the strongest forensic cases in modern Spanish criminal history built around a preserved DNA profile, documented chain of custody, and years of investigative work supported by advances in forensic science. The trial, however, never took place. In January 2016, while being held in Sodto Del Ral prison near Madrid, awaiting judicial proceedings, Ahmed Chelj was found dead after taking his own life in his prison cell. His death permanently ended the possibility of a criminal trial, preventing investigators, prosecutors, and Eva Blanco's family from hearing a full explanation of what had happened on the night of April 20th, 1997. No confession was ever obtained and the precise sequence of events leading to the attack remains unknown. Although the DNA evidence conclusively identified the suspect, many personal questions surrounding motive and opportunity were left unanswered because the only person capable of providing those answers died before appearing in court.