Post by LadyBlue on Feb 9, 2013 15:05:39 GMT -5
A Tennessee man charged with murdering a woman in 1993 did not kill the woman eventually found in Austintown after she was missing for three years.
Mahoning County Coroner cold case investigator Courtney Bouchie said this week the DNA of Dennis G. Hetzel, also known as Wesley C. Carlisle, of Knoxville, did not match with the DNA of the man who killed Sharon Lynn Kedzierski.
Bouchie identified Kedzierski Monday after 23 years of her identity being a mystery to investigators.
“Based on the evidence, it’s very, very likely he was with her in the days before her death,” said Bouchie, who is currently trying to identify two local victims. “However, he was not the perpetrator. Dennis Hetzel’s DNA did not match the offender’s DNA, so it is an ongoing investigation.”
Kedzierski’s body was found in 1992 in Austintown and was one of 300 homicides investigators throughout the country tried to solve and link in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Bouchie, through DNA analysis and a national database of missing persons, discovered Kedzierski’s identity. She was murdered by blunt force head trauma
Mahoning County prosecutors in 1993 indicted Hetzel on charges of murder, rape and abusing a corpse for Kedzierski's death. Investigators matched Hetzel’s dental pattern with the bite marks found on Kezierski’s body.
Coroners and investigators at the time were unable to identify Kedzierski, who was last seen in Oct. 25, 1989 in Miami Lakes, Fla. Kedzierski, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., was 43 at the time.
Hetzel was extradited to Texas in 1995 after a grand jury in Tom Green County, Tex. indicted him on charges of raping a child and sexually abusing a child. He was eventually convicted for raping his 5- and 7-year-old daughters.
At the time, investigators throughout the country were investigating a rash of about 300 murders, where women, usually runaways and suspected prostitutes, were found dead near truck stops in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A woman walking her dog April 9, 1992 along the edge of the Universal Truck Mall parking lot on Clarkins Drive in Austintown found Kedzierski’s partially nude body. Autopsies showed she died of blunt force trauma and investigators ruled the death a homicide.
The Mahoning County Coroner said fingerprints were submitted to the FBI, dental comparisons were made and composite sketches were distributed to various media outlets and law enforcement agencies.
Investigators said Kedzierski was visiting friends in Florida in 1989 when she went missing. Her family, who lives in Oregon, hired a private investigator but never found her.
The Mahoning County Coroner's office began investigating cold cases in 2010 by using case information and DNA of missing persons found dead in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. The system offers free DNA analysis for family members of missing persons.
Kedzierski’s family submitted DNA in 2011, leading the coroner’s office to confirm Kedzierski’s identity for the first time in 23 years.
www.wkbn.com/content/news/local/story/Man-Charged-in-1992-Murder-of-Missing-Woman/1Hk0_qho6kSmls1JsqZmvQ.cspx
Mahoning County Coroner cold case investigator Courtney Bouchie said this week the DNA of Dennis G. Hetzel, also known as Wesley C. Carlisle, of Knoxville, did not match with the DNA of the man who killed Sharon Lynn Kedzierski.
Bouchie identified Kedzierski Monday after 23 years of her identity being a mystery to investigators.
“Based on the evidence, it’s very, very likely he was with her in the days before her death,” said Bouchie, who is currently trying to identify two local victims. “However, he was not the perpetrator. Dennis Hetzel’s DNA did not match the offender’s DNA, so it is an ongoing investigation.”
Kedzierski’s body was found in 1992 in Austintown and was one of 300 homicides investigators throughout the country tried to solve and link in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Bouchie, through DNA analysis and a national database of missing persons, discovered Kedzierski’s identity. She was murdered by blunt force head trauma
Mahoning County prosecutors in 1993 indicted Hetzel on charges of murder, rape and abusing a corpse for Kedzierski's death. Investigators matched Hetzel’s dental pattern with the bite marks found on Kezierski’s body.
Coroners and investigators at the time were unable to identify Kedzierski, who was last seen in Oct. 25, 1989 in Miami Lakes, Fla. Kedzierski, of Pembroke Pines, Fla., was 43 at the time.
Hetzel was extradited to Texas in 1995 after a grand jury in Tom Green County, Tex. indicted him on charges of raping a child and sexually abusing a child. He was eventually convicted for raping his 5- and 7-year-old daughters.
At the time, investigators throughout the country were investigating a rash of about 300 murders, where women, usually runaways and suspected prostitutes, were found dead near truck stops in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A woman walking her dog April 9, 1992 along the edge of the Universal Truck Mall parking lot on Clarkins Drive in Austintown found Kedzierski’s partially nude body. Autopsies showed she died of blunt force trauma and investigators ruled the death a homicide.
The Mahoning County Coroner said fingerprints were submitted to the FBI, dental comparisons were made and composite sketches were distributed to various media outlets and law enforcement agencies.
Investigators said Kedzierski was visiting friends in Florida in 1989 when she went missing. Her family, who lives in Oregon, hired a private investigator but never found her.
The Mahoning County Coroner's office began investigating cold cases in 2010 by using case information and DNA of missing persons found dead in the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. The system offers free DNA analysis for family members of missing persons.
Kedzierski’s family submitted DNA in 2011, leading the coroner’s office to confirm Kedzierski’s identity for the first time in 23 years.
www.wkbn.com/content/news/local/story/Man-Charged-in-1992-Murder-of-Missing-Woman/1Hk0_qho6kSmls1JsqZmvQ.cspx