The unsolved murder of a 19-year-old woman in a Chicago suburb more than four decades ago was linked to a suspected serial killer believed to be responsible for several other slayings in the area, authorities said Wednesday.
Police in North Aurora, west of Chicago, said at a news conference that they had solved the 1979 murder of 19-year-old Kathy Halle using advanced DNA technology that an official at the laboratory that conducted tests in the case , compared to a ‘wet vacuum cleaner’. “
Authorities identified Halle’s killer as Bruce Lindahl, 29, who died in 1981 when he accidentally severed a major artery in his leg and bled to death during a knife attack on Charles Huber, 18, according to The Associated Press.
Halle disappeared on March 29, 1979, after leaving her apartment complex to pick up her sister at a shopping center, North Aurora police Detective Ryan Peat told reporters. Her body was found three weeks later in a nearby river.
Authorities now believe Lindahl kidnapped Halle from her apartment parking lot and killed her, Peat said.
Authorities did not provide her cause of death, but Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser told reporters that Halle’s killing appeared similar to other kidnappings and murders linked to Lindahl.
Peat said several unsolved murders in the area contain “incredible” circumstantial evidence linking them to Lindahl.
Four years ago, a detective in the nearby suburb of Lisle said Lindahl may have killed as many as 12 people in 1976, including 16-year-old Pamela Maurer, the AP reported.
Maurer, who was also kidnapped, was linked to Lindahl through DNA evidence and the case was solved in 2020, according to the AP.
Peat said investigators in North Aurora relied on a DNA sample from that case to link Lindahl to Halle’s murder.
Steve DuBois of DNA Labs International told reporters Wednesday that Halle’s case used a forensic technique known as “MVAC.”
The technology, which he says sprays a sterile solution onto a piece of evidence before vacuuming it back up, can identify severely compromised genetic material.
Halle’s body had been in the Fox River for weeks before a 12-year-old boy fishing found her remains on April 24, 1979, according to NBC Chicago.
North Aurora police said in a statement Wednesday that Halle’s family thanked authorities and were grateful for closure after 45 years.
Citing advances in DNA technology, the family said, “We are hopeful that other families will not have to endure the same pain and uncertainty that we have faced for so many years.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
