An Arkansas guy has been arrested and charged with a decades-old rape and homicide of a tender lady in Washington nearest DNA from his cigarette connected him to the sufferer.
“I was just so relieved,” Kent Police Det. Sgt. Tim Ford, the top investigator at the case, advised Fox Information Virtual.
Kent detectives and Van Buren County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Kenneth Duane Kundert, 65, Aug. 20 at his house alike Clinton, Arkansas. He has been charged with first-degree homicide.
The arrest brings to a similar virtually 45 years of attempting to find a suspect.
SERIAL KILLER CONFESSES TO 1986 MURDER OF TEEN MOM IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Kenneth Duane Kundert reserving picture (Van Buren County Sheriff’s Administrative center)
At the evening of Feb. 23, 1980, 30-year-old Dorothy “Dottie” Marie Silzel was once ultimate perceptible nearest her shift on the native pizza eating place in Washington, consistent with police charging paperwork.
3 days upcoming, nearest Silzel’s pals and crowd grew involved, officials going to her apartment, the place they discovered her partly nude frame. Her dying was once dominated a murder because of suffocation, and police enthusiastic she have been sexually assaulted.
The case went cold till 2015, when Silzel’s brother referred to as Sgt. Ford, who labored as a manager within the Kent Police Main Crimes Unit on the age.
“Once I got off the phone with him and listened to his story, and I knew it was a really old case … I just began reading it, and I got everything I could find,” Ford, who has been with the Kent Police Branch 28 years, advised Fox Information Virtual. “Instantly, I was hooked in this case … and I couldn’t even tell you why. I just wanted to work and solve that thing.”
Ford has spent the ultimate 9 years seeking to resolve the case. As his place on the police segment modified through the years and he labored on alternative assignments, he mentioned he actually carried the case field with him from playground to playground.
“I was going to retire in March of this year, 2024, but I didn’t want to retire until it was solved,” he mentioned.
In February 1980, Silzel was once an teacher for Boeing who labored phase age at Gaetano’s Pizza eating place and volunteered with the Particular Olympics.
SUSPECT, 78, CHARGED IN 44-YEAR-OLD TEXAS COLD CASE KIDNAPPING, MURDER OF NURSING STUDENT
“Part of the problem with the case was … she knew so many people,” Ford mentioned. “So, you can’t rule anybody out. So, trying to figure out how I’m going to narrow down the suspect pool was pretty daunting.”
But, he by no means gave up at the case, crediting the detectives who labored on it ahead of him.
“The toughest ones to solve are the crimes of opportunities and … the random crimes because most murder victims, they know their killer at some point. They have some sort of a connection,” Ford mentioned. “And so the detectives back in 1980, they did the best they could with the information they had and the technology they had.”
Dorothy Silzel volunteered with the Particular Olympics. (Kent Police Branch )
As DNA era complicated through the years, a male DNA profile, categorised as “Individual A,” was once received from samples from Silzel’s frame, consistent with fees.
This profile was once entered into the Blended DNA Index Machine (“CODIS”), a searchable laptop program that manages native, environment and nationwide databases and incorporates DNA profiles from convicted offenders, arrested people and crime scene proof.
Ford and his staff reached out to Identifinders World, a forensic family tree corporate in California. In March 2022, senior forensic genealogist Misty Gillis carried out family tree comparisons of the DNA profile from “Individual A.” She known 11 doable suspects, who’re all alike as first cousins.
“We’re fortunate today that technology has advanced so much that, you know, scientists … can put the other pieces together that we normal people can’t see,” Ford mentioned.
He and alternative investigators started researching and gathering covert DNA samples from the known crew of doable suspects, however not one of the samples matched the profile of “Individual A.”
MONTANA MAN ID’D AS SUSPECT IN COLD CASE KILLING OF TEEN GIRL KILLS HIMSELF AFTER BEING QUESTIONED
In September 2023, detectives started researching two of the 11 doable suspects — brothers Kenneth Kundert and Kurt Kundert, who lived in Arkansas. Ford upcoming coordinated with the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Administrative center to lend a hand with the investigation. When Kurt Kundert’s DNA was once no longer a fit, he was once excluded as a suspect, and government upcoming centered their consideration on Kenneth.
“We were able to locate our target … and do surveillance on him and watch as he smoked a cigarette in a Walmart parking lot and then ultimately extinguish it and drop it in the cigarette butt receptacle that’s outside the door,” Ford mentioned. “And we just collected all the cigarette butts in there … we end up sending off three of them up to the lab, and one of them was a match.”
Investigators additionally found out that Kenneth Kundert’s brother probably lived in an rental advanced simply 1,200 ft clear of the place Silzel lived and was once discovered lifeless.
On Aug. 20, police arrested Kundert for the homicide of Silzel. He’s being held at Van Buren correctional middle on $3,000,000 bail, waiting for extradition to Washington environment. Kundert has a historical past of convictions and arrests for misdemeanor offenses in 4 states.
It was once no longer straight away cloudless if Kundert had retained an legal professional.
Dorothy “Dottie” Silzel was once simply 30 years ancient when she was once murdered. (Kent Police Branch)
Ford mentioned Kundert’s arrest was once “surreal,” including, “The first thing I did was text the family. … I’m glad we were able to get some sort of closure for them.”
“Hopefully, we can convict this guy of doing what he did. He’s a monster,” Silzel’s niece, Leanne Milligan, told Fox13.
“To killers who think they got away with it, they should be nervous about every knock on the door because it doesn’t matter how many years it’s been, that knock is coming,” Casey McNerthney with the King County Prosecutor’s Office advised Fox13.
Ford credited his colleagues with serving to him at the case, pronouncing “it was a team effort,” occasion Silzel’s sister-in-law, Carol Yantzer, advised Fox13, “Tim has definitely elevated the Kent Police Department very high.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Ford mentioned forensic family tree “can only help us and give hope for other future victims or victims of the past.”
The relationship between Kundert and Silzel residue opaque, and government are nonetheless investigating the case.
