Top 10 Murder Mysteries That Were Finally Solved
#10: Jay Cook & Tanya Van Cuylenborg (1987)
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In November 1987, Canadian couple Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg took a business trip to Seattle, Washington. However, on the 24th, Van Cuylenborg’s body was found near Alger, Washington. Two days later, Cook’s body was located in Snohomish County, nearly 60 miles away. As Van Cuylenborg had been assaulted, DNA evidence was kept. But no one was brought to justice. Until 2018, anyway. Investigators used the online service GEDmatch, uploaded the DNA from Van Cuylenborg’s clothes, and found a match from multiple sources. This led them to arrest the profiles’ cousin, William Earl Talbott II, after matching his sample with a cup he had dropped. In 2019, he was found guilty and received two life sentences.
#9: Anna Jean Kane (1988)
In October 1988, the body of Anna Jean Kane was located within the Ontelaunee Trail in Perry Township, Pennsylvania. She had been strangled and placed in the wooded area. DNA evidence from her clothes was stored by the police. By 1990, the local newspaper, The Reading Eagle, called for information on the killing. They received an anonymous letter that contained intimate details that led the cops to believe this person was responsible for Kane's slaying. In 2022, the DNA evidence matched the saliva on the envelope that sent the disturbing note. The Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia used the profile to link it to Scott Grim, who had been arrested in 2002 for another crime. However, he passed away in 2018.
#8: Janet Love (1986)
In April 1986, an assailant entered the apartment of Janet Love in Bedford, Texas, assaulted her, then fatally shot her. While the police followed several leads, they couldn’t find the person responsible. Yet they kept the DNA evidence and entered it into the FBI Combined DNA Index System, also known as CODIS. In 2020, with help from the University of North Texas, genealogists put a profile together on the culprit, Ray Anthony Chapa. He had lived near Love in 1986, just 1,000 feet away. However, in January 2021, Chapa passed away from a terminal illness. Regardless, the police believed he had committed other crimes since he lived in Illinois and Montana and began investigating this possibility.
#7: Joette Smith (1983)
In March 1983, the body of Joette Smith was located in the San Lorenzo River, near Ben Lomond, California, where she was the owner of the restaurant Buffalo Gals. The local community was devastated by the popular businesswoman's demise. While police interviewed many people, there were no suspects. But in 1988, Eric David Drummond came up in the investigation. He had apparently asked Smith on a date and was rejected. However, there was no evidence of his involvement in her end. Until 2022, that is. Using new technology, a DNA profile from Smith’s clothes was created that matched Drummond, who had a history of assault crimes. Yet before he could be arrested, Drummond took his own life.
#6: Marise Chiverella (1964)
In March 1964, Marise Chiverella walked to school in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Sadly, this was the last time the young girl was seen alive, as her body was discovered later the same day in a coal mine pit. Chiverella had been kidnapped, assaulted, and slain. Sadly, the police were unable to find the person responsible. Years later, the DNA found on Chiverella’s clothes was uploaded to an online database. In 2020, work from a genealogist and then-18-year-old student Eric Schubert discovered a lead, a distant cousin. This led investigators to James Forte. However, he passed away in 1980 at the age of 38 from natural causes. In 2022, Forte’s body was exhumed, and the DNA matched.
#5: Lloyd Duane Bogle & Patricia Kalitzke (1956)
In January 1956, Lloyd Duane Bogle was found fatally shot next to his car in Great Falls, Montana. The following day, the body of Patricia Kalitzke was discovered. The teenage couple was seemingly slain by the same person. The police followed many leads, including notorious gangster Whitey Bulger, but nothing concrete was established. In 2001, investigators created a DNA profile of the suspect found in Kalitzke’s autopsy. Years later, a match was found on genealogy websites with a distant relative. This led the cops to Kenneth Gould, who grew up near Kalitzke’s home. However, Gould was cremated in 2007. So, in 2021, the police tested his children and found Gould was the culprit for this grim 65-year-old crime.
#4: Rita Curran (1971)
In July 1971, a roommate discovered the body of school teacher Rita Curran in their apartment in Burlington, Vermont. There were signs she had been assaulted before her demise. The police suspected that infamous serial killer Ted Bundy was responsible as he was born in the area. However, he denied it, and there was no proof. In 2014, DNA from a cigarette butt at the scene was analyzed. Unfortunately, neither the national crime database nor the main suspects matched the profile. In 2022, the cigarette, along with additional DNA from Curran’s clothes, was examined by genealogy experts. This led to a match to William DeRoos, a neighbor to Curran, whose then-wife gave a false alibi for. DeRoos, however, passed away in 1983.
#3: Shannon Rose Lloyd & Renee Cuevas (1987 & 1989)
In May 1987, Shannon Rose Lloyd was assaulted and slain in her bedroom in Garden Grove, California. In February 1989, Renee Cuevas’s body was located near the Marine Corps Air Station in El Toro, now known as Lake Forest. In both of these crimes, neither perpetrator was discovered. It wasn’t until 2003 that these two cases were connected together. In 2021, the Orange County District Attorney’s Investigative Genetic Genealogy team found that DNA evidence from the murders was linked to Reuben J. Smith, who lived in the area in the ‘80s. In 1998, he was arrested for assault and attempted murder. As such, his DNA was on file. However, in 1999, Smith took his own life.
#2: BTK (1974-91)
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From the outside, Dennis Rader seemed like a nice, normal person. After all, he had a family and was high-up in his local church and a Cub Scout leader. But behind the scenes, he had taken the lives of ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, from 1974 to 1991. Calling himself BTK, the serial killer anonymously sent letters to the cops and media about his horrid crimes. In 2004, Rader contacted authorities again. By the following year, Rader sent a floppy drive to the media to taunt them more. Instead, they found metadata on the drive that linked it to his church and contained his name. In August 2005, Rader was found guilty of the ten murders and was sentenced to 175 years.
#1: The Golden State Killer (1974-86)
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In 2001, the police discovered that the Original Night Stalker and a serial assaulter that had terrorized areas around Sacramento, California, were, in fact, the same person. In 2013, he was given the moniker of The Golden State Killer, who had been on a rampage of crimes from 1974 to 1986, including 120 burglaries, 51 assaults, and 13 slayings. Along the way, through phone calls, he mocked the police as they struggled to find him. In 2018, a new genetic genealogy technique linked the Golden State Killer to DNA from Joseph James DeAngelo through family members who had willingly uploaded their profiles to databases. In 2020, the former police officer was sentenced to life in prison for his horrendous criminal history.
