Posted on 12/20/2018 2:14:39 PM PST by ETL
Thirty-nine years to the day that a woman was killed and left in her family's car in the parking lot of an Iowa mall, officials announced Wednesday a suspect was arrested in her murder after DNA at the crime scene was reexamined.
The Cedar Rapids Police Department said Jerry Lynn Burns, 64, was arrested at his job in Manchester after "persistent and determined" investigative work that included a scientific DNA analysis for the killing of Michelle Martinko.
"The family never gave up hope that this case would be solved," Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman said. "Today’s announcement makes it clear that this Police Department and our investigators never gave up on this case either."
Martinko was 18 when she was found dead in the parking lot of the Cedar Rapid's Westdale Mall shortly after 4 a.m. on Dec. 20, 1979. The teenager had driven to the mall to shop for a new winter coat the previous day following a school banquet.
After her parents reported her missing at 2 a.m., police discovered the teen's body in her vehicle about four hours later. The medical examiner's office said the teen was stabbed at least 8 times and had wounds on her hands, which indicated she fought her killer, according to The Des Moines Register.
Investigators had worked to solve the case for decades, and on Oct. 2, 2006, investigators announced new evidence, the suspect’s DNA, was developed in the case.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
It used to be that the police would not consider a drop of blood as a body and they would not convict unless there was a body. Now it is known that if you have even a small portion like a drop of blood you have the body. The drop represents the whole.
EXACTLY why I never went through with my ancestry DNA test. Especially after my cousin told me all the DNA goes into a database to see who you might be related to who’s also in the database. That was just a little too much Philip k. Dickish for me.
Sorry, that’s TWICE now that I forgot to italicize your comments to separate them from mine (post 20 and 17).
On a public computer at the moment and it ‘times out’ every hour or so. Was running out of time and rushed the post. :)
Bump for later
I don’t understand either, what was the motive unless he just felt led to kill some random person?
More and more cold cases will be solved with DNA. While it’s a good thing, I’m not fully on board with LE using relatives’ DNA info from those testing places like AncestryDNA.
A tragedy, most certainly, but no comparison to BTK. My husband lived in Wichita, and he knows of some of the things that sicko did, and simply stabbing his victims was NOT his m.o. I’m sure you’re aware of what the initials BTK stand for.
Hopefully, they can break the guy down, if he has absolutely no good reason why his blood was found, wherever the cop found it. That strikes me a bit odd that he won’t say where or how he found the blood, though.
[Martinko was 18 when she was found dead in the parking lot of the Cedar Rapid’s Westdale Mall shortly after 4 a.m. on Dec. 20, 1979. The teenager had driven to the mall to shop for a new winter coat the previous day following a school banquet.
After her parents reported her missing at 2 a.m., police discovered the teen’s body in her vehicle about four hours later]
2 a.m. to 4 a.m. is four hours? (not blaming you)
From the article:
“”Police developed the sketch based on descriptions provided by two witnesses””
Your post: “”because there was a fairly well detailed eyewitness report and sketch drawn””
Where is the detailed eyewitness report and when? Good grief, that’s not enough to even issue a parking ticket.
Never understood why a persons fingerprints and dna weren’t taken at birth and put on file. Think of all the crimes that would have been quickly solved.
There was a good enough eyewitness report to base that sketch on.
DNA evidence isnt enough to convict.There must be 3 things for a murder conviction, motive, opportunity, and means. what if he was 1000 miles away when she was murdered. Where did they get a dna sample from him?. is he or has he been charged with other violent crimes? Im not saying hes innocent or guilty. but for some reason the news story is very short on details. was he a neighbor? a family friend?
why not?.....seems lots of people get out of prison precisely because of dna.
“why not?.....seems lots of people get out of prison precisely because of dna”
not exactly. usually one of three things happens after such newly tested DNA is discovered to not match the original defendant:
1. there’s a retrial and the DNA of an unknown subject along with other exculpatory evidence (like an alibi) from the original trial are re-presented in the new trial.
2. More likely, charges are simply dismissed and there is no retrial because the likelihood of a new conviction is practically zero, particularly if the original evidence was inadequate, bogus and/or the defendant had been railroaded with fabricated or illegally withheld evidence by corrupt police and corrupt prosecutors, as has often been the situation with such cases.
3. The newly tested DNA produces a match in CODIS, resulting in charges being dismissed against the original defendant, and charges brought against the person that was matched with the crime scene DNA. Often the newly charged person had been a person of interest and/or a corrupted “witness” in the original trial.
This seems like a pioneering case. Can they convict him of murder based just on DNA on her coat? How can the prosecution or the defense prove anything about anything else from 40+ years ago? We have heard nothing about him having any other criminal record.
I don’t know the legality of this but, big brother is watching.
“EXACTLY why I never went through with my ancestry DNA test.”
It doesn’t matter if your DNA is in the database or not; they can still track you down. That’s how they got the 30-year serial killer in California a few months ago. He had never submitted any DNA to 23 And Me.
A distant relative of his had submitted his, though, and it was a good match to the unknown killer’s DNA. That put the cops on the track of THAT guy’s relatives which led them to the killer’s daughter. She helped them trap her father.
I’m more worried about DNA sitting in some lab that could be used by employees to frame someone.
Yep. No one is whispering privately about him being either a known criminal or connected to the girl. That’s unusual in small towns.
This seems a long way from over.
“Can they convict him of murder based just on DNA on her coat?”
If i was a juror on such a case that was that old and there was not any other meaningful evidence one way or the other besides the DNA, I wouldn’t vote to convict ...
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