DNA evidence from cigarette butt leads to arrest of a man who allegedly killed a woman 44 years ago

DNA evidence from cigarette butt leads to arrest of a man who allegedly killed a woman 44 years ago

Photo: Dorothy ‘Dottie’ Silzel (left) Duane Kundert (suspect, right)

A DNA evidence from a cigarette butt has led to the arrest of a 65-year-old man, Kenneth Duane Kundert, over the alleged killing of a woman, Dorothy ‘Dottie’ Silzel’ which took place 44 years ago (February 26, 1980) in Washington DC, USA.

The murder of Silzel was reportedly unsolved for 44 years.

But US police said a cigarette butt has led to an arrest finally.

According to local media reports, Kenneth Duane Kundert, 65, was arrested in Arkansas last week on a warrant accusing him of murder in the death of 30-year-old Dorothy “Dottie” Maria Silzel.

Kent Police Chief Rafael Padilla told a news conference on Wednesday that Silzel was found dead on February 26, 1980, inside her home in Kent, about 30 minutes south of Seattle.

She died from strangling or suffocation, and suffered a blow to her head, according to US police , who cited an autopsy report, adding that the victim also had been sexually assaulted, according to court documents provided by prosecutors.

Silzel was last seen three nights earlier leaving a pizza shop where she worked on the weekends to supplement her income as a full-time training supervisor for Boeing, police noted.

Police said friends and colleagues requested a welfare check at Silzel’s home after she had not reported to work at Boeing for two days, which was highly unusual.

According to police, although DNA technology was not advanced enough to identify a suspect at the time, DNA evidence was collected during the initial investigation.

Investigators with the Washington State Patrol crime lab built a DNA profile from the evidence for an unknown man they called Individual A, police said.

According to police, in 2016, advancement in DNA technology allowed investigators to obtain a partial DNA profile from the victim’s bathrobe at the crime scene that matched the DNA profile of Individual A.

Police added that investigators compared multiple DNA samples throughout the years to the partial DNA profile, but none matched Individual A.

A breakthrough finally came in 2022, when crime lab investigators used genetic genealogy to identify 11 possible suspects, police noted, saying that forensic method compares unidentified DNA to DNA that can be found in genealogy databases, potentially allowing researchers to find relatives of the unknown person. That, combined with other detective work, can help investigators identify potential suspects.

The method has been used in recent years to crack some of the nation’s coldest cases, including the arrest of the Golden State Killer in 2018.

Police revealed that in the Washington case, investigators began collecting DNA samples from the potential suspects to compare to Individual A’s DNA profile.