Nearly 40 Years After College Student's Stabbing Death, Genetic Records Lead to a Suspect


Nearly 40 Years After College Student's Stabbing Death, Genetic Records Lead to a Suspect



A Florida truck driver has been arrested and charged in the killing of a college student working as an intern for a Denver radio station nearly 40 years ago, a break in the cold case that authorities on Monday credited to the analysis of DNA information.
For nearly 40 years, the murder of a college student, Helene Pruszynski, stumped Colorado detectives. The cold case languished for so long that all but one of her immediate family members had died.

But then Thursday, Pruszynski’s older sister, Janet Johnson, got a phone call: A prosecutor said homicide investigators had made a breakthrough thanks to advances in genetic genealogy and dogged police work.
It culminated with the Douglas County sheriff announcing Monday the arrest of a Florida truck driver, James Curtis Clanton, in the abduction, sexual assault and murder of Pruszynski, who was 21 years old.
She was a senior at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and had been returning to her aunt’s home from an internship at a Denver radio station when she was stabbed to death on Jan. 16, 1980. Her body — nude from the waist down and arms tied behind her back — was discovered the next day in a field in what is now Highlands Ranch, Colorado.
“The detectives and everyone else who helped to make this day happen are my heroes,” Johnson, who is now 70, said in a phone interview Monday.
Investigators say that they were able to put together an extensive family tree of potential suspects using semen recovered from Pruszynski’s body and working with forensic genealogists at United Data Connect and websites like Ancestry.com and GEDmatch.com. The DNA evidence had been preserved at the time of the murder, but the technology didn’t exist. A check of a national DNA database maintained by the FBI in 1998 also didn’t yield any leads.
“There’s DNA that’s a big part of this case, but don’t misunderstand that it’s like, ‘Hey we just entered DNA into some voodoo database and out popped this guy,’” George Brauchler, the local district attorney, said during a news conference Monday.
In November, detectives surreptitiously collected DNA samples from the potential suspects, including Clanton, whom they tracked to Lake Butler, Florida, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
The investigators first tried to collect a DNA sample from a discarded milk carton, but were unsuccessful. Next, they followed Clanton to a local bar, where they said they were able to get his DNA off a beer mug that he had been drinking from. It matched the DNA profile of Pruszynski’s killer, the affidavit said.

MMW

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