Police collect a cigarette butt to help close a decades-old cold case | Forensic Files

oh my God my wife has been murdered my wife has been murdered February 19 1987 started out as a typical Thursday
evening for Terry and Roxanne wood after work they met for dinner at a restaurant
in downtown Niles Michigan and then went to their local bowling alley both arriving in separate cars
at around midnight Roxanne was ready to head home but her husband Terry wanted to stay to play one more game there's
Witnesses where Terry and she said goodnight to each other hug kiss love you drive safe he arrived home 45
minutes after her and once in their home He Came Upon a horrific site notices Roxanne laying in the kitchen he notices
a pool of blood on the floor she was bleeding profusely from her neck she was sexually assaulted the assailant
left his DNA a sample was preserved but given the limitations of Technology back
in 1987 not much could be done with it the case went cold decades went by and police still had no
leads in the murder of Roxanne wood I was starting to lose hope Dr Ashland Kirsten and I had been
talking about involving the students at Western in a Cold Case project in 2020 a
criminal justice studies professor at Western Michigan University figured out a way to speed up the investigation with
the help of several students their plan the students would process around 3 500 pages of documents into a single
digitized database the officers are able to search by name and see if they've already been interviewed if they needed
a follow-up they can search locations things that they wouldn't be able to do just flipping through thousands of pages
around the same time the students began their work detective Christensen hired identifinders International a company
that specializes in genetic genealogy to try and come up with a genetic profile of the killer I believed that this case
was extremely solvable and I believe that I could Solve IT Gabrielle Vargas who worked as a consultant for
identifinders is considered by some investigators to be one of the world's best genetic genealogists
the first thing that I died was I requested access to the case File it was very easy to read through
quite quickly due to the work of the students Vargas was able to create a genetic profile of the suspect and later
with the help of an online DNA service started building a family tree of Roxanne's killer
this couple was born around 1920. based on that we can presume that they would have kids around 1940 maybe 1950. it
would have to be one of their children the couple had three sons but detectives quickly eliminated two of The Three
Brothers as possibilities he's been involved in a lot of different things violent things violent things
sexual deviant things you name it he's probably been involved in it and you connect the DNA with someone who has a
history of violent Behavior you got yourself a suspect absolutely the individual they identified was Patrick
Gillum but investigators still needed a piece of gillum's DNA to compare to the DNA they had found at the scene of
Roxanne Woods murder in May 2021 Trooper Ryan cotty and his team surveilled Gillum for days on end and picked up a
crucial clue that would help them collect his DNA we noticed that he was a smoker and why
does that help you just in the simple fact that uh you know when you're smoking it's a great source of DNA you
have your lips directly on the butt of the cigarette and your saliva gets in the cigarette hot on gillum's tail the
team witnessed Gillum flick a cigarette butt outside the window while he was driving but when they sent the cigarette
to the lab for testing it wasn't a match well you were scratching our heads I called the trooper that grabbed that
cigarette butt and I said is there any way at all that you lost sight of that when it flipped out of his finger
and he said a card to go by right then it was possible the cigarette wasn't gillums so Katie went back to work
he pulled into this laundromat which we saw as a window of opportunity that he would most likely be coming out to take
a smoke break I'm not a smoker and there was a gas station right over on the corner that I
saw and I I was like well you know I need to go over and get a pack of cigarettes and sit on the The Crib next
to the laundromat he came and took a seat probably about six to eight feet away from me and we had a smoke together
so how did you strike up a conversation with him I just tried to say hi to him made some small conversation he liked
the Red Wings it wasn't long before Gillum finished his cigarette and went back inside
I saw him throw his cigarette which was right in about this area so it was a great situation because the
cigarette was by itself so I pull out a uh a glove and go over and I picked the cigarette up with my hand was it still
small it was it was still warm yes it was so I wrapped it up inside that glove I stuck it in my pocket and and headed
out investigators held their breath until the results of gillum's cigarette butt came back this time it was a
perfect match to the DNA left at the 1987 crime scene

Roxanne Wood was murdered in 1987, but the case went cold for more than three decades. In 2021, investigators collected a crucial piece of evidence that would help close the case: a cigarette butt.

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

The murder of Roxanne Wood in 1987 was solved through genetic genealogy and diligent police work decades later.

Key points

Murder Discovery. Terry Wood discovers his wife Roxanne has been brutally murdered in their home.
Cold Case Revival. A professor and students at Western Michigan University revive the cold case from 1987.
Crucial DNA Match. A cigarette butt leads to a DNA match with the suspect, Patrick Gillum.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Oh my God, my wife has been murdered!

Terry's shocking discovery after returning home.

WatchNov 12, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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