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Separated Siblings Reunited Decades Later After Police ID 1971 Jane Doe
For more than half a century, she was known only as “Jane Doe.”
Her beaten body was found in a Howard County field in 1971, She died days later, was never identified, and her name was lost to time.
For 54 years, the case gathered dust — the police department's oldest cold case homicide.
Now police say they finally know who she was.
Authorities announced Wednesday, Sept. 4, that DNA profiling has revealed the victim as Sadie Belle Murray, born in 1924 in Pennsylvania, who at the time of her death went by Sarah Belle Sharkey.
And in a stunning twist, detectives also tracked down her …
IT'S Over: Sex Assault Suspect Captured In El Salvador Decades After Fairfax County Arrest
After more than a decade on the run, a 27-year-old man wanted for sexual assault out of Fairfax County was captured in El Salvador, police announced.
David Ernesto Cuevas Maldonado, of Springfield, fled to El Salvador after sexually assaulting his victim, a stranger, at a home on Commerce Street in Springfield on Oct. 21, 2013, county police announced on Friday, May 24.
Detectives collected evidence from the scene to help identify Maldonado with the help of a DNA profile dating back to 2014, authorities said. He was charged with sex assault and released on bond before fleeing to El Salvador…
Tenacious Detective Cracks Two Virginia Cold Cases In One Shot
For nearly 40 years, Jacqueline Lard and Amy Baker's killer has remained a mystery.
On Tuesday, March 5, 2024, authorities in Virginia announced a break in the cases.
Elroy Harrison, 65, was identified as a suspect in both cases thanks to the relentless work of Stafford County Sheriff's Detective D.K. Wood, Sheriff David Decatur said.
Jacqueline Lard was killed in 1986, and Amy Baker in 1989. Both were residents of Stafford, but Baker was returning from visiting family in Falls Church when she went missing.
On March 4, Harrison was indicted by a Stafford County Grand Jury for the fir…
Deceased Fisherman ID'd As Virginia Cold Case Killer: State Police
A fisherman who died in 2017 has been identified as the killer responsible for three unsolved Virginia murders in the late 1980s, police said.
Alan W. Wilmer Sr., who died at 63 years old in Lancaster County, VA, is believed to have slain David L. Knobling, 20, Robin M. Edwards, 14, and Teresa Lynn Spaw Howell, 29, Virginia State Police announced on Jan. 8.
If Wilmer were to be alive, charges would be filed against him in the thre homicides, both the Isle of Wight County and City of Hampton Commonwealth’s attorneys confirm.
ABOUT WILMER:
DNA Evidence Identifies Former Northern Ne…
Cold Case Murder Suspect Back In Virginia
A 51-year-old New York man suspect in a 1994 murder case is back in Virginia.
Stephen Smerk, of Niskayuna, NY, was extradited to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on Tuesday, Sept. 26.
He is facing second-degree murder in the Nov. 20, 1994 death of 37-year-old Robin Lawrence, who was found dead in a Springfield, VA home, Fairfax County police said.
Smerk is believed to have stabbed Lawrence inside of her Reseca Lane home, when he was 22 years old, authorities said.
In 1994, a DNA profile was developed; however, at the time there was no match in any system for …
