Forensic genealogists in the United States have solved one of the oldest criminal cases in the country’s history. Specialists identified the murderer of a 75-year-old double homicide using DNA samples.
Cold Case DNA Unraveled
Texas airman Lloyd Duane Bogle and a high school girl Patricia Kalitzke were shot dead in 1956 in Great Falls, Montana. The women were killed after being shot in the head, and the killer raped the young woman. Investigators considered several suspects at the time of the murder, but no evidence was enough to point to the killer. The police eventually closed the case without finding out who killed the young man and the woman. The identity of the murderer remained unknown until recently, according to the New York Times. American public radio station NPR published an interview with Sergeant Jon Kadner, who took over the investigation in 2012.
He revealed that he first thought that DNA was the only hope of learning the truth.During Patricia Kalitzke’s autopsy in 1956, a swab was taken from the woman’s vagina. The sample was put on a microscope slide and preserved. In 2001, the laboratory analyzed the substance and concluded that it contained no sperm from the boyfriend of the young woman, Lloyd Duane.
Constructing the Family Tree In Reverse
When Sergeant Jon Kadner took a look at the analysis results from 2001, he decided to test his luck with forensic genealogy. An emerging forensic science that uses genetic information from companies to identify suspects or victims of crimes, forensic genealogy is gaining more and more recognition and increasingly helps in solving criminal cases, including those that have been cold for decades. Accessing the archives, genealogists can construct a reverse family tree, which leads directly to the suspect.
Forensic genealogy worked and investigators identified a man named Kenneth Gould. He lived near Great Falls at the time of the double homicide. Sergeant Jon Kadner was delighted to have a solid lead, a match and, most importantly, a name for the first time in sixty-five years. However, Kenneth Gould died in 2007 and was cremated, so the only way for the detectives to finally solve the crime was to test the DNA of the suspect’s relatives. The children, who live in Missouri, agreed to help the investigators. In the end, it turned out that Kenneth Gould was the killer of Lloyd Duane and Patricia Kalitzke. The sergeant then contacted the families of the victims. Understandably, the relatives’ reaction to the story was mixed, relief and grief in equal measure.