An Oregon man has been convicted of a murder he committed 45 years ago in Alaska after investigators were able to connect him to the crime using genetic genealogy.
67-year-old Donald McQuade was initially arrested in 2019, but his trial was delayed due to the coronavirus lockdowns. He was finally convicted this week in Anchorage for the slaying of Shelley Connolly, 16, whose body was found near a highway in 1978, Alaska Public Media reported.
Several years after the teenager was found dead, Alaska State Troopers put together a DNA profile from samples collected from her body but were unable to find a match.
In 2019, a comparison of the DNA from the crime scene to samples of DNA in genealogical databases connected Connolly’s death to McQuade.
Alaska State Trooper investigator Randy McPherron even came out of retirement to lead the decades-old cold case, KTUU reported.
“We started using regular, good old police work, figuring out, was this individual living in Alaska at the time? Did he have access?” McPherron told the local outlet.
The detective explained that he and his team were able to determine that McQuade was living in Anchorage at the time of the murder, “so we were pretty confident that this was a viable suspect.”
Prosecutors emphasized the DNA evidence from Connolly’s body during the trial, but McQuade’s attorney, Kyle Barber, argued that the DNA was the only evidence the state had against his client.
He also claimed that police had also found DNA evidence possibly linked to two other people.
Public Defender Benjamin Dresner said he plans to appeal the conviction.
McPherron, however, told KTUU that he’s thankful that new genealogy technology led to the case being solved.
“It was very exciting to be a part of this, you know, and I just happened to be at the right place at the right time, when this technique came along,” he said. “It’s quite a game-changer. It’s like how forensic DNA has changed a lot over the past 20-odd years or so, and to think, back in the 70′s, when this case happened, if that [happened] now, it could’ve been a much different story.”
McQuade’s sentencing is set for April 26, 2024.
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