For practically 50 years, the homicide of Julie Ann Hanson, who was 15 when she was stabbed and her physique found in a corn discipline, baffled investigators in a Chicago suburb.
Detectives have come and gone, chasing leads and an inventory of potential suspects which have by no means been utterly banned.
But then a breakthrough within the unsolved case got here final week, when police in Naperville, Illinois, introduced that they had arrested a Minnesota man in a 1972 homicide.
Barry Lee Velpley, 76, who lived inside a mile of Julie’s house on the time, was taken into custody Wednesday and charged with three counts of first-degree homicide, officers stated.
Police stated genetic pedigree linked a retired welder, who was 27 on the time, to the crime. They wouldn’t elaborate on the particular dynamics that led investigators to him, saying they didn’t need to settle his case towards Velpley, who’s being held on $10 million bond.
“It was never a cold case for our police department,” Naperville Police Chief Robert Marshall stated throughout a information convention Friday. “We were all conscious of Julie’s murder, looking for the killer.”
It was not instantly clear whether or not Velpley of Mounds View, Minnesota, had a lawyer. Officers had been ready to extradite him to Illinois.
The success, like greater than 40 different arrests in long-unsolved circumstances, is as soon as once more being attributed to the science of genetic family tree. The most notable such case was the arrest of the so-called Golden State killer, Joseph James DiAngelo. He was sentenced to life with out parole for the 13 murders and practically 50 rapes that terrorized California within the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s.
Genetic family tree usually entails cross-checking of DNA proof with ancestry information, together with these on fashionable ancestry database web sites. Marshall stated a number of non-public laboratories and firms helped with the investigation, which furthered the careers of many detectives.
“This brutal crime plagued our community for many, many, many years,” he stated.
Officials stated that on July 7, 1972, Julie borrowed her brother’s bike to go to a baseball sport and by no means returned house. He was reported lacking the following day, and his physique was present in a corn discipline in Naperville, about 30 miles west of Chicago.
Julie’s mother and father have died, however different members of the family, a few of whom attended the information convention on Friday, thanked investigators in a press release learn by Marshall.
“As you can imagine, it has been a long journey for our family,” the assertion learn. “We are forever grateful to all the people who have worked on this matter for many years.”
Will County state lawyer James W. Glasgow stated Julie’s case was the final of three murders of women within the Naperville space within the Nineteen Seventies that investigators had been in a position to resolve.
“So we have lived these crimes,” Glasgow stated. “They’ve been on our shoulders our entire careers.”
Although there was hypothesis that the person convicted within the different two murders had additionally killed Julie, investigators didn’t imagine this was the case, he stated.
“These people never rested,” he stated of the investigators, “never put the file to the side.”
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
