A cold case killer, who sent chilling “I-been-watching-you” notes to young girls years after murdering eight-year-old April Tinsley in 1988 in Indiana, is the latest suspect to be caught using advances in ancestral DNA sleuthing.
John D. Miller, 59, was arrested on Sunday for Tinsley’s death by Investigators from the Fort Wayne Police Department and the Indiana State Police, The Washington Post reported.
Miller, who was scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday morning, confessed to the murder after investigators tracked him down and questioned him, according to a probable cause affidavit.
Miller admiited abducting Tinsley, sexually assaulting her and choking her so that she would not report the incident to police, The Indianapolis Star reported.
He was taken to the Allen County Jail and is facing charges of murder, child molesting and criminal confinement.
Tinsley was reported missing on April 1, 1988, when she didn’t return home from visiting a friend in Fort Wayne. Her body was found three days later in a ditch, the Post said.
One of the girl’s shoes was later recovered about 1,000 feet away, along with a sex-toy in a shopping bag. It was later established she had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated but DNA recovered from her underwear failed to produce a suspect.
Two years later an eerie message appeared, carved onto the planks of a barn near to where the girl’s body had been recovered.
“I kill 8 year old April M Tinsley,” the barn read, according to a the police affidavit. “[D]id you find the other shoe haha I will kill again.”
The Tinsley murder became a cold case.
Fourteen years later, four messages were sent to other young girls in the area, along with used condoms and polaroid photos, promising that they were next on the killer’s list, the Post said.
The DNA recovered from the condoms matched the DNA material from Tinsley’s underwear, investigators were still were unable to come up with a suspect.
Taking a clue from recent cases, the Fort Wayne Police Department submitted the DNA for analysis against public genealogy databases and were able to zone in on Miller, who lived in a trailer park just outside Fort Wayne.
After rummaging through his trash, they discovered three used condoms and the DNA was a match.
Advances in technology have helped investigators catch other long forgotten killers thanks to DNA.
Earlier this year police arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo, famously known as the Golden State Killer, after investigators matched crime-scene DNA with genetic material stored by a distant relative on an online site.
From there, they narrowed it down to the Sacramento-area grandfather using DNA obtained from material he'd discarded.
In a separate incident, a DJ's chewing gum helped crack a Pennsylvania murder cold case dating back to 1992, also using new genetic sleuthing like the kind used in tracking down the Golden State Killer suspect.
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