 | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
The 1969 murder of Diane Maxwell involved the death of Diane Maxwell, a 25-year-old phone operator for Southwestern Bell, who was found raped and killed in a shack in December 1969 in Houston, Texas.
On December 14, 1969, 25-year-old Diane Maxwell (b. 1944) was walking to her job as a phone operator for Southwestern Bell, but never made it to the building. [1] Later that day, a man by the name of William Bell noticed a man walking away from a shack. When Bell came to look in the shack, he found the raped, dead body of Maxwell and immediately notified police.
However, the case remained unsolved due to the lack of computer technology. In 1986, 17 years after the incident, investigators reopened the case, but could not solve it. The case remained closed until July 2003, 33 years after the murder was committed. A batch of forensics they had performed in 1969 was found by Houston police, who located James Ray Davis, a lifetime criminal. [1] [2] Davis was last convicted of kidnapping a young girl and was suspected to be the perpetrator of the Maxwell rape and murder. DNA evidence confirmed that he did rape her. Davis was convicted of first degree murder (the robbery, rape, and kidnapping statute of limitations had expired) shortly afterward, and was sentenced to life without parole. [3]
James Ray Davis died in prison three years after being convicted in 2007. [4]
In 2008, the case was featured in the Forensic Files episode "Brotherly Love".
Dru Katrina Sjodin was an American woman who was abducted from the Columbia Mall parking lot in Grand Forks, North Dakota, by Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., on November 22, 2003. Her disappearance and murder garnered great media coverage throughout the United States and prompted the creation of the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Registry.
A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or retained material evidence, or fresh activities of a suspect. New technological methods developed after the crime was committed can be used on the surviving evidence for analysis often with conclusive results.
Gerald Fiten Mason was an American convicted murderer and rapist. Mason's 2003 arrest and prosecution for the 1957 murders of two El Segundo, California police officers made national headlines.
The Vidocq Society is a members-only crime-solving club in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Richard Francis Cottingham is an American serial killer who was convicted in New York of six murders committed between 1972 and 1980 and convicted in New Jersey of twelve murders committed between 1967 and 1978. He was nicknamed by media as the Torso Killer and the Times Square Ripper, since some of the murders he was convicted of included mutilation.
FamilyTreeDNA is a division of Gene by Gene, a commercial genetic testing company based in Houston, Texas. FamilyTreeDNA offers analysis of autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and mitochondrial DNA to individuals for genealogical purpose. With a database of more than two million records, it is the most popular company worldwide for Y-DNA and mitochondrial DNA, and the fourth most popular for autosomal DNA. In Europe, it is the most common also for autosomal DNA. FamilyTreeDNA as a division of Gene by Gene were acquired by MYDNA, Inc., an Australian company, in January 2021.
David Parker Ray, also known as the Toy-Box Killer, was an American kidnapper, torturer, serial rapist and suspected serial killer. Ray kidnapped, raped and tortured an unknown number of women over many decades at his home in Elephant Butte, New Mexico, occasionally assisted by accomplices including his daughter Glenda Jean "Jesse" Ray and partner Cindy Hendy. Ray was suspected by authorities and accused by accomplices of murdering up to 60 of his victims, however no bodies or definitive evidence have ever been uncovered linking him to any murders.
Brianna Zunino Denison was a college student who was abducted on January 20, 2008, from a friend's house in Reno, Nevada. Her body was discovered on February 15, 2008, in a field near a Reno business park after being raped and murdered. A man named James Biela was convicted of the murder.
Timothy Wilson Spencer, also known as The Southside Strangler, was an American serial killer who committed three rapes and murders in Richmond, Virginia, and one in Arlington, Virginia, in the fall of 1987. In addition, he is believed to have committed at least one previous murder, in 1984, for which a different man, David Vasquez, was wrongfully convicted. He was known to police as a prolific home burglar.
Tina Marie Harmon was a 12-year-old American girl who was abducted, raped, and murdered on October 29, 1981, after being dropped off in Lodi, Ohio. After the discovery of her body, she was later buried at the Maple Mound Cemetery. Two men were originally convicted of her murder on circumstantial evidence but were eventually released when the conviction was overturned. Harmon's murder was solved in 2010 when DNA from the individual who raped her was matched to Robert Anthony Buell.
Maria Elizabeth Ridulph was a seven-year-old girl who disappeared from Sycamore, Illinois, on December 3, 1957. Her remains were found almost five months later in a wooded area near Woodbine, Illinois, approximately 90 miles (140 km) from her home. Maria was last seen by her friend on her neighborhood corner of Center Cross Street and Archie Place with an unknown man in his early twenties who called himself "Johnny".
The Texas Killing Fields is a title used to roughly denote the area surrounding the Interstate Highway 45 corridor southeast of Houston, where since the early 1970s, more than 30 bodies have been found, and specifically to a 25-acre patch of land in League City, Texas where four women were found between 1983 and 1991. The bodies along the corridor were mainly of girls or young women. Furthermore, many additional young girls have disappeared from this area who are still missing. Most of the victims were aged between 12 and 25 years. Some shared similar physical features, such as similar hairstyles.
Marvin Charles Gabrion is an American murderer, rapist, and suspected serial killer convicted of the 1997 kidnapping and murder of 19-year-old Rachel Timmerman, of Cedar Springs, Michigan. Timmerman and her 11-month-old daughter, Shannon, disappeared two days before Gabrion was set to stand trial on rape charges filed by Rachel the previous summer. Rachel's body was found in Oxford Lake, weighted down by cinder blocks. Shannon remains missing, but is presumed deceased. Although Gabrion was not tried for killing Shannon, court documents describe her murder as “virtually undisputed.”
CeCe Moore is an American genetic genealogist who has been described as the country's foremost such entrepreneur. She has appeared on many TV shows and worked as a genetic genealogy researcher for others such as Finding Your Roots. She has reportedly helped law enforcement agencies in identifying suspects in over 300 cold cases using DNA and genetic genealogy. In May 2020, she began appearing in a prime time ABC television series called The Genetic Detective in which each episode recounts a cold case she helped solve. In addition to her television work, she is known for pioneering the genetic genealogy methodologies used by adoptees and others of unknown origin for identifying biological family.
Parabon NanoLabs, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that develops nanopharmaceuticals and provides DNA phenotyping services for law enforcement organizations.
Suzanne Arlene "Suzie" Bombardier was an American teenager who was kidnapped, raped, and stabbed to death on June 22, 1980. On June 27, her body was found by a fisherman, floating in the San Joaquin River east of Antioch, California near its bridge, 60 miles (97 km) east of San Francisco. On December 11, 2017, after extensive DNA profiling, 63-year-old Mitchell Lynn Bacom, a convicted sex offender, was arrested as the prime suspect. He was charged with and convicted of kidnapping, rape, oral copulation, murder, and murder with use of a deadly weapon. This was Antioch's oldest cold case murder. At the time of Bombardier's homicide, Bacom was known to her family.
April Marie Tinsley was an eight-year-old girl from Fort Wayne, Indiana, United States, who was kidnapped, raped, and murdered in 1988. Her killer left several anonymous messages and notes in the Fort Wayne area between 1990 and 2004, openly boasting about April's murder and threatening to kill again.
Gerald "Jerry" Walter McFadden, known as The Animal, was an American serial killer and sex offender who was convicted of the May 1986 murders of two women and one man in Smith County, Texas. He fled from jail shortly after his arrest, leading to the biggest manhunt in Texas history, with it coming to an end in July. He was later sentenced to death and executed in 1999. Years after his execution, he was found to have perpetrated an earlier 1979 murder in Oregon through DNA evidence, and authorities have since speculated he could have committed other killings.
Richard William Davis was an American child murderer, rapist and possible serial killer who was posthumously linked via DNA to the abduction and murder of 5-year-old Siobhan McGuinness, who was found raped and stabbed near Turah, Montana on February 7, 1974. Davis had never been convicted or considered a suspect in any violent crime during his lifetime. He died of natural causes in 2012.
Joseph Donald Ture Jr. is an American serial killer and kidnapper who was convicted of murdering six people and perpetrating numerous rapes in Minnesota between 1978 and 1980. He is currently serving six life sentences at Minnesota Correctional Facility – Stillwater in Bayport, Minnesota.
