The family of Diane Dahn, a 29-year-old San Diego mom who was stabbed to death in her Santee apartment in 1988, can find solace in the fact that authorities have identified her killer, the San Diego Sheriff's Department said.
Through genealogical DNA testing, county sheriff's investigators were able to link Warren Robertson, a tow truck driver who lived in the same complex, to the murder of Dahn, according to CBS News. And although Robertson had died in an Indiana house fire in 1999 at age 39, Dahn's family can have some closure.
"Looking back some of the struggles you go through is you feel alone because of what you went through, you lost your mother," said Dahn's now grown son, Mark Beyer, in a video statement. He was two years old when Dahn was killed. "The answers that my family received is closure and closure is everything even after so much time had passed."
Dahn was found dead in her apartment on May 2, 1988, by a colleague from the San Diego Transit Corp. who went to her home after she failed to show up at work, according to CBS News. Beyer was wandering in the apartment complex at the time.
Through testing of fingernail scrapings and a hair recovered from Dahn's hands, authorities were able to link the murder to Robertson.
"The investigation revealed substantial and convincing evidence that Robertson had murdered Diane," a sheriff's statement said.
The testing involves matching DNA from crime scenes to DNA databases. By doing so, authorities can trace possible relatives of suspects. In this instance, a cold case team formed family histories in the form of "trees." They were then able to track down other potential relatives of the suspect.
"This process was so exhaustive, nine family trees were constructed with nearly 1,300 people connected to Robertson either through blood or marriage," the sheriff's office said. "This murder would likely have gone unsolved if not for the use of investigative genetic genealogy."
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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