Cases Old and Cold

[HairOfTheDog]

SUSPECTED KILLER ARRESTED AFTER DNA TIES HIM TO AXE MURDER - 40 YEARS LATER

Love it when cold cases are solved using newer technology, finally offering some answers and closure to surviving family members decades after the crime.


^ Murder victim Eileen Ferro, 21, was a dental hygienist who was stabbed to death in her home on Ladyslipper Drive in Shrewsbury, Mass. Her husband found her dead in the utility room of their home on Feb. 22, 1974.


^ Suspected murderer - Lonzo Guthrie, 69, of Austell, Georgia

Guthrie was a furniture deliveryman who had a job at Ferro's home the day before she was stabbed, Worcester County, Massachusetts, District Attorney Joe Early Jr. said. He was never on investigators' radar at the time of the killing, Early said.

In Massachusetts, investigators resubmitted evidence from the 1974 crime scene to a lab to re-evaluate it for any traces of DNA. At the same time, Guthrie violated parole for a crime he committed in Los Angeles and was required to provide a DNA sample.

These two sources of DNA submitted separately generated a match in the system and provided the break that had eluded investigators for years.

Guthrie was being held without bond and was fighting extradition to Massachusetts. Guthrie is a registered sex offender stemming from a rape conviction in California, also in 1974.

Refs:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/justice/ma...?hpt=ju_t2
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...found.html