Another Cold Case Solved, by jay7777

[Jay7777]

Another Cold Case solved:

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/discarded-cigarette-breaks-open-cold-case-runaway-murdered-1997-n74846


A cigarette carelessly tossed away at a train station cracked open an ice-cold case: the 1997 murder of a 14-year-old Wisconsin runaway.



The rape and slaying of Amber Gail Creek went unsolved for more than 17 years because even though police collected fingerprints and DNA from the crime scene, they never found a match.




That changed two months ago when Racine County sheriff's investigators learned that a state database had linked the latest prints on a plastic bag over Creel's head to a Palatine, Ill., man named James P. Eaton, officials said.



Police began tailing Eaton, whose fingerprints wound up in the system for minor infractions. They were nearby when the 36-year-old flicked away a partially smoke cigarette as he waited for a train that was late, authorities said.



DNA obtained from the cigarette matched the genetic material covered from Creek, and Eaton has been charged with first-degree homicide and hiding a corpse.



"Today is a wonderful day," Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling said at a Tuesday briefing on the case.



"This is a day we have been waiting for for nearly 17 years."





Police Make Arrest in Teen's 1997 Death


Creek ran away from a state-run juvenile shelter in Chicago on Jan. 23, 1997, and was last seen leaving a party at a Motel 6 in Rolling Meadows, Ill., and getting into a luxury car with a placard reading "mayor."



Her body was found a couple of weeks later in a Racine County marsh — a plastic bag over the head and the word "Hi" written on the back of an upraised hand — but it took more than a year to identfy.



Police said she had been sexually assaulted, strangled and suffocated.


The arrest of Eaton, who is being held in lieu of $1 million bail, came just a day after another Wisconsin sheriff announced a big break in a different cold case: the 1990 killing of Berit Beck, who disappeared on a road trip and was found dumped in a ditch six weeks later.



Police released a search warrant affidavit that revealed they have tied physical evidence from Beck's van to a trucker, Dennis Brantner, 60, of Kenosha, Wis. He has not been arrested and attempts to reach him were unsuccessful.

[xiulan]

Apr 8, 2014 23:21:36 GMT Jay7777 said:

Another Cold Case solved:

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/discarded-cigarette-breaks-open-cold-case-runaway-murdered-1997-n74846

Love to see these cases. A cigarette butt... Not only is it encouraging because it keeps reminding us that no case is ever too old for a resolution, but also that no stone is entirely worthless to overturn and at least have a good look.

[armchair]

Hope he likes prison food...

[lepke]

Apr 8, 2014 23:35:32 GMT xiulan said:

Apr 8, 2014 23:21:36 GMT Jay7777 said:

Another Cold Case solved:

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/discarded-cigarette-breaks-open-cold-case-runaway-murdered-1997-n74846

No stone is entirely worthless to overturn and at least have a good look.

As long as you aren't scared of woodlice

[kona]

www.noozhawk.com/article/suspected_contract_killer_charged_in_santa_barbara_county_cold_case_2014041

Holy Hell there falling faster and closer every day!

[albion]

Apr 8, 2014 23:21:36 GMT Jay7777 said:

Another Cold Case solved:

www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/discarded-cigarette-breaks-open-cold-case-runaway-murdered-1997-n74846

Was Eaton a fan of Cheese also? Or is that the stereotypical shirt to be wearing if you have spent much time in Wisconsin? trickofthetail was right about Racine, he mentioned it months ago.

Attachments:

[Jay7777]

Here is another Cold Case solved:


news.msn.com/crime-justice/suspect-in-1992-slaying-of-illinois-teen-arrested-in-california

This is why I started copying all the text down, the web-link goes away in time! 

[Jay7777]

This is one of my favorite ones from 1957, which was solved in 2003 with an arrest and just goes to show you, that there is still hope to solve any case, including the EAR/ONS case:

fpk.homestead.com/files/solved_murder_of_police_officers.htm

This guy robbed, raped and then killed two police officers and went on to lead a normal life before his arrest in 2003. Makes me feel EAR/ONS also changed his lifestyle, similar to GRK and BTK killers.


Man pleads guilty to killing two police officers in 1957



By LINDA DEUTSCH



LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A South Carolina man entered surprise guilty pleas Monday to the 1957 killings of two California police officers and tearfully apologized.



"I don't understand why I did this," said Gerald F. Mason, 69.



The Columbia, S.C., man had been living quietly with his wife of 40 years, giving her and their neighbors no indication before his January arrest that he had a criminal past.



Under a plea deal, rape, robbery and kidnapping charges were dropped, and Mason agreed to be sentenced immediately. Superior Court Judge David S. Wesley sentenced him to two consecutive life terms for the killings of El Segundo officers Milton Curtis, 25, and Richard Phillips, 28.



The officers were shot to death on July 22, 1957, by a man they had pulled over for running a red light. About 90 minutes earlier, two 15-year-old girls and their dates were robbed by a gunman who tied them up, sexually assaulted a girl, stole watches, jewelry and cash, forced the victims to undress and drove off in one boy's 1949 Ford.



In court Monday, a bald and aged Mason stood before the families of the slain men and at least a dozen members of the El Segundo police department who turned out for the hearing, as did District Attorney Steve Cooley and Sheriff Lee Baca.



"I feel like I am dreaming," Mason said. "It makes no sense. It's contrary to everything I believe.

"...At no other time in my life have I intentionally harmed anyone," he said.



The children of the slain men told Mason of the grief their families have endured in more than 45 years without their fathers.



"Your cowardly act shattered our lives," said Carolyn Phillips, who spoke of her mother's struggle to raise three children on her own.



"She grieved for him every day," Phillips said. "...Since that time you had 45 years to raise your children and to know and love your grandchildren. You stole from him the right to see us grow, to know and love his grandchildren. And you stole our right to know him. For all this we cannot and will not forgive you."



Keith Curtis, the son of the other slain officer, said he was grateful to authorities for bringing Mason to justice at a time when he felt that all hope was lost. He said he regretted that one of his brothers died last year before he could see his father's killer brought to justice.



Mason said he had anguished over what to say in court and concluded that "the depth of my regret exceeds my ability to express it."



He spoke of "that terrible, stupid and horrid day" when the shooting happened. He told the families: "Please forgive me. Do not be bitter."



Deputy District Attorney Darren Levine said that his office is willing to have Mason serve his sentence in South Carolina, which the defendant had asked for.



The case languished until police got a tip last September that someone had bragged about the killings. The lead was false but it prompted a review in which the FBI's fingerprint database matched prints from the stolen car to Mason, who had done jail time for a 1956 burglary conviction in South Carolina.



(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[Jay7777]

A couple more:

Maybe someday something similar will happen with our EAR/ONS suspect like one of these cases:

kwgn.com/2014/03/06/suspected-serial-rapist-apparently-kills-himself-before-trial/

news.msn.com/crime-justice/starbucks-cup-identifies-washington-rape-suspect

[Jay7777]

Kind of interesting, in the fact that the Lipstick Murder was only 17 when caught:

www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/24/illinois.lipstick.murders/index.html?_s=PM:CRIME

'Lipstick Killer' behind bars since 1946

Dixon, Illinois (CNN) -- William Heirens, the "Lipstick Killer," is believed to be the longest-serving inmate in the United States. He turns 81 on November 15.



Diabetes has ravaged his body, but his mind is sharp.



"Bill's never allowed himself to be institutionalized," said Dolores Kennedy, his long-time friend and advocate. "He's kept himself focused on the positives."



The days are spent mostly watching television and reading magazines. Using a wheelchair and sharing a cell with a roommate in the health unit of Dixon Correctional Center, he still yearns for a chance at freedom. It is something he has not tasted since 1946.



Heirens has been locked behind bars and walls for 63 years, making inmate C06103 the longest-serving prisoner in Illinois history, state officials say.



According to Steven Drizin, the legal director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, Heirens "has served longer than anyone in the U.S. that I can find."



He was put away a year after the end of World War II. It is a dubious record, but fitting for the man dubbed the Lipstick Killer, whose crime spree remains among the most infamous in the history of Chicago, the city of Capone and Leopold and Loeb.



The scar-faced gangster and the thrill-kill pair are long gone. Heirens, however, has not slipped into the past. He lives in the present and hopes for a future outside prison. Supporters have championed his cause, convinced that he is innocent, or arguing that he has been rehabilitated, a model inmate who has served his sentence.



"Pray for my release," he wrote in a letter dated October 11.



"There is no reason to keep this man behind bars," said Drizin. "He meets all the criteria for parole."



Pray for my release

--William Heirens

While Drizin, who has represented Heirens since 2001, and others passionately plead for his release and prepare to re-petition the state parole board that has consistently refused to free Heirens, others are convinced he is a manipulative murderer.



"He was the bogeyman," said Betty Finn of the man convicted of strangling her sister. "I don't think you need to feel sorry for him. He chose his life and he chose his actions."



Josephine Ross was the first victim. The 43-year-old was found stabbed to death in her apartment. She was killed on June 5, 1945.



In December, police discovered the body of Frances Brown in her bathroom. She was stabbed through the neck and shot in the head. The killer left a message on the wall. It said, "for heavens sake catch me before I kill more I cannot control myself." It was scrawled in red lipstick. The press seized on the detail. The headlines would soon scream of the Lipstick Killer.



Four weeks later, an intruder used a ladder to enter the second-floor window of Suzanne Degnan's bedroom. The killer approached the sleeping 6-year-old girl and abducted her. "I was old enough to know everything that happened and remember the looks on my parents' faces," Finn said of the crime against her younger sister.



"Can you imagine as a child to have this happen? Can you imagine going to bed at night and all of a sudden your sister is not in her bed?"



There would be a ransom note demanding $20,000. But there would also be the horrific discovery of Suzanne's severed head in a sewer. Other body parts were found within days.



Chicago was gripped in fear. Scores of people were questioned, but the investigation dragged on for months without a break. One, however, came in June, when two police officers confronted a burglar near the Degnan home.



The young thief was a 17-year-old student at the University of Chicago. His name was William Heirens, and police soon became convinced he was the killer.



Drizin said Heirens was subjected to days of brutal interrogation. He also was beaten and given sodium pentothal to make him tell the truth, Drizin said. He underwent a spinal tap, another extreme measure to compel him to talk.



He was the bogeyman

--Betty Finn

Prosecutors said his handwriting matched that of the words scribbled in lipstick at the scene of the Brown killing. The FBI determined that a fingerprint lifted from the Degnan ransom note matched Heirens.



That gave the state's attorney two powerful pieces of evidence against Heirens. But a confession would seal his fate. On August 7, 1946, Heirens supplied it, describing how he killed Degnan, Brown and Ross.



He pleaded guilty to three counts of murder. In exchange for the plea, Heirens was spared the death penalty and given three consecutive life sentences.



Heirens has distinguished himself in prison. He was the first inmate in Illinois to receive a college degree. "He helped redesign the library system in the department of corrections," said Drizin, who also commended Heirens for becoming a "first-rate jailhouse lawyer."



Drizin said Heirens has been eligible for parole nearly every year since the 1970s. The Center on Wrongful Convictions mounted a clemency campaign for Heirens on the grounds that he has served longer than required, and that the evidence used to convict him was unreliable. "Smoke and mirrors" was how Drizin described it.



Kennedy, who wrote a book that attempts to prove Heirens is innocent, said a political component is keeping him in prison.



"It's a very political case," she said. "Authorities have made statements that he would never get out. I think the courts managed to look the other way and the [parole] board didn't want to take the heat."



John Russick, senior curator for the Chicago History Museum, said the story of William Heirens is complicated.



"This is not a largely understood case," Russick said. "People know the term Lipstick Killer, and that there was a sensational crime, but I don't think it's talked about in detail."



He added, "I feel like it defies logic, and that's what's troubling about it. When you look closely at the nature of these kinds [of confessions] and when you know how these confessions were acquired, there's enough there to -- at the very least -- to make you feel very unsure."



Frank Czagany, who met Heirens when both were working in the machine shop at U.S. Steel in 1944, remembers his friend as being "very quiet, not wild." "He wouldn't say crap if he had a mouthful of it," Czagany said.



Finn calls the efforts supporting Heirens misguided. "I'm not a vindictive person, I'm not doing this out of anger. It's fear," she said. "There is no evidence that says he's the least bit innocent. How can every single court be wrong?"



Finn, who attended Heirens' most recent parole hearing, in July, said he is not innocent by any stretch of the imagination. "Keep him locked in jail," she said.



Kennedy said she and others are looking for a suitable placement in a nursing home for Heirens. She said she believes there is some indication that if an acceptable facility is located, he may have a chance to spend his final days a free man.



"He looks for any glimmer of hope," said Kennedy. "He still wants to be out."



Drizin said that time has come. "This is a case where I have serious doubts about his guilt," he said. "But it's a case where there is no question in my mind that the circus-like atmosphere that pervaded his arrest and his prosecution resulted in a trial proceeding for Bill and a guilty plea that was fundamentally unfair."



"They probably have good hearts and are dedicated," Finn said of Heirens' believers. "He is not innocent by any stretch, no matter how they twist it."

[Jay7777]

Ok let add this one from back in February! It took away to link this guy:

articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-02-25/news/fl-coral-springs-cold-case-20140224_1_dna-sample-dna-profile-davie-woman

Davie woman's 1990 slaying linked to executed killer

Ivelisse Berrios-Beguerisse has been dead longer than she had been alive. Her murder finally was solved 23 years after she left work at Sawgrass Mills and never came home, Coral Springs Police announced Monday.



The 20-year-old Davie woman's naked body was found Nov. 27, 1990, in the 200 block of Northwest 122nd Avenue in Coral Springs' quiet West Glen neighborhood. The Broward Medical Examiner determined she had died of asphyxia.



Oba Chandler, executed in 2011 for a triple murder, was the killer, according to cold-case detectives Brian Koenig and Dan Cucchi.



In 1990, investigators had gathered and processed DNA samples without much success because the technology was less sophisticated and there was no database of criminals' DNA with which to compare it, Cucchi said.



"Mr. Chandler, when he was convicted in 1994, that's when his DNA profile would have been entered into the national database, so it was in there in that time period," Cucchi said. "It's just that we didn't have a profile from our victim's rape kit at that time."



Chandler, 65, was convicted in the rape, strangulation and killing of Joan Rogers, 36, and her daughters Michelle, 17, and Christe, 14, in St. Petersburg in 1989. Twenty-two years later, he was executed by lethal injection.



Berrios-Beguerisse had been working at Swim and Sport in Sawgrass Mills for less than a month when she disappeared after her shift on Nov. 26, 1990. Chandler lived in Sunrise, about a mile from the mall, police said.



She left the mall through the White Seahorse exit just after 10 p.m. with several co-workers who split up as they went to their cars. That was the last time she was seen alive.



Her husband of nine months, Bernardo Beguerisse, went to the mall and found her 1985 Ford Tempo with two slashed tires on the passenger side. He called police.



Nearly three hours later, around 1 a.m., her body was found with ligature marks on both wrists and ankles and brown packing tape stuck in her hair, Cucchi said.



"Back in 1990, rape kits and the DNA collection process were not the same but now it's way more advanced," Cucchi said. "You can actually take a smaller sample and through the new technology they can develop potential profiles and suspect DNA, where in the past they could not."



In August, Koenig and Cucchi were assigned the cold case and began meticulously reviewing the evidence. They asked the Broward Sheriff's Office Crime Lab to have the DNA tested again, Koenig said.



"They said, 'Go for it. Send it to us again. We'll run it again,'" he said. "Thanks to their efforts they were able to pull it out."



On Feb. 5, detectives received word that Chandler was a match.



"Sometimes [the DNA sample] can be too degraded and there are other factors that come into play," Koenig said. "In this particular case we got lucky and they were able to obtain a full profile."



If Chandler were alive today, he would be charged with the strangulation death of Ivelisse Berrios-Beguerisse, police said.



Her husband now lives in Mexico. Her sister Rebecca Berrios, 36, and parents live in Puerto Rico.



"They've got mixed emotions," Koenig said. "Obviously they're grateful for having some kind of closure and knowing more about what happened, but at the same time just to have to revisit it again 23 years later was obviously rough on them."



"The news caught them by surprise, too," Cucchi added. "They asked for more information on Mr. Chandler, which we provided them, in particular [about] the triple killings up in St. Petersburg. They were not aware of this guy at the time so they wanted to learn everything they could about him."



In the 1989 case, Rogers and her daughters were returning home to Ohio after a trip to Disney World when they crossed paths with Chandler.



They met him in Tampa, where they had stopped to ask directions while searching for their motel. Chandler gave them directions to a Days Inn, then offered to take them on a sunset cruise on his boat that evening on Tampa Bay, according to trial records.



They were never seen alive again. Their bodies — bound, gagged and naked below the waist — were found floating in Tampa Bay three days later.



It took investigators three years to solve the case. Local officials posted billboards in the Tampa Bay area showing Chandler's distinctive handwriting, found scribbled on a tourist brochure in Rogers' car. That led to Chandler's arrest in 1992.



At trial, prosecutors said Chandler had lured the trio to his boat, raped them and dumped them into the bay with concrete blocks tied around their necks. Chandler testified that he had given Rogers directions, but said he was out fishing alone the night of the killings.



A Canadian tourist testified that she had been raped by Chandler, an aluminum contractor, under similar circumstances a few weeks before the murders.



Koenig and Cucchi indicated they are examining other cold cases, including that of Terry Ann Gilchrist, 35, of Pompano Beach, found strangled in a field off Coral Ridge Drive north of Wiles Road on May 20, 1990.



"I can't really get into what we've done and what we haven't done because that case is still open, but the cases are similar," Koenig said.



Staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this story.



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[happycamper]

Interesting...
"It took investigators three years to solve the case. Local officials posted billboards in the Tampa Bay area showing Chandler's distinctive handwriting, found scribbled on a tourist brochure in Rogers' car. That led to Chandler's arrest in 1992."

[Jay7777]

Three years to solve the case and not until 2014 to link the second cold case after Oba was executed back in 2011. He didn't even admit to his unsolved crimes.

[Jay7777]

Here is another one:

news.msn.com/crime-justice/expert-dna-evidence-links-suspect-to-killing

This is why I started copying all the text down, the web-link goes away in time!

[Jay7777]

Sounds like this guys killed up to 40 victims and will finally be accountable:

news.msn.com/crime-justice/los-angeles-jury-convicts-man-of-3-serial-murders

This is why I started copying all the text down, the web-link goes away in time!