WaPo has reported that Portland, Oregon police has solved a 40 year cold case murder where DNA discovered under the fingernails of the victim was matched to notorious serial rapist and murderer, Jerry "Animal" McFadden, from Texas who was executed in 1999: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...t-killer-named-animal/?utm_term=.44d5ffbc7573
Portland, Oregon's Police press release, Portland police is asking for "anyone who might have lived in Portland during 1979 to come forward" if they recognize the photo of McFadden who was seen in Portland: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=199719
February 4
Rose Ann Hlavka came home to the modest brick apartment building just northwest of Portland, Ore.'s downtown around 10 p.m. expecting to find her 20-year-old sister, Anna Marie. The siblings not only shared a home but they both worked at a nearby McDonald's, where Anna Marie Hlavka had gotten off a few hours earlier.
But her sister didn't answer when Rose Ann opened the door and called her name on that night, July 24, 1979. She soon discovered why: Anna Marie was sprawled dead in the bedroom. She'd been strangled and sexually assaulted.
For four decades, Portland police were baffled by the brutal crime against the young woman with flowing brown locks and a bright smile. Blood samples were analyzed. Polygraphs were administered. Suspects were grilled and released. The case went cold — that is, until last week.
Portland police announced Thursday that improbably intact DNA saved from under Anna Marie's fingernails had at last pinpointed her killer, a man police had never suspected: Jerry "Animal" McFadden, a notorious serial rapist and murderer from Texas who once inspired one of the state's biggest ever manhunts.
The shocking announcement of McFadden's role in a crime 2,000 miles away from his usual territory brought an unexpected end to Hlavka's mysterious killing. It also marked the latest triumph for a new, controversial branch of DNA testing that has used public genealogy sites to close scores of lingering cold cases, while identifying high-profile suspects like the Golden State Killer.
"Without this technology, we never would have solved this case," Portland Police detective Meredith Hopper told reporters on Thursday. "All of his criminal history and police contacts and even address information is all from about three counties in Texas. There was never any link to him coming up here ... He never would have risen to the level of a suspect."
In the hours after Hlavka's sister found her body, Portland detectives combed the neighborhood for witnesses. They found a coworker who had last seen her alive that day around 5 p.m. outside her apartment. They interviewed countless suspects. And, crucially, they kept and carefully stored forensic evidence from the scene.
But no one emerged as a credible suspect. Weeks stretched into years and then into decades.
In 2009, Portland police sent old evidence to the state crime lab to see if new DNA techniques might turn up any leads. Two years later, Janelle Moore, a senior forensic scientist with the Oregon State Police Crime Lab, made a remarkable discovery: A full DNA profile from an unidentified man she was confident was the killer.
"It was surprising when we got the initial results," Moore told reporters on Thursday. "It continues to be a landmark cold case for me from a scientific perspective, that we can get a profile from evidence that is so, so old."
Detectives eagerly uploaded the information to CODIS, the FBI's national database for DNA. There was no hit. Whoever had assaulted Hlavka had never been entered into the directory.
In 2012, Hopper took over the case and began trying to match the DNA profile with various suspects who had been identified over the years. Time and again, she asked the state to line up the genetic markers.
"We submitted about eight DNA profiles," Hopper told reporters. "Each one, I was certain was going to be the suspect. And every time, Dr. Moore would tell me nope, that's not the one."
The trail went cold again. And then last April, Hopper read news reports about the arrest of Joseph James DeAngelo, the suspected Golden State Killer linked to at least 13 murders and 50 rapes. Hopper learned that police had used DNA information in public genealogy databases to identify DeAngelo.
While CODIS had failed to find Hlavka's murder, she realized that if any of the man's relatives had submitted DNA information to the public sites, they might find a link. So the Portland Police Bureau sent the crime-scene DNA to Parabon NanoLabs, a Reston-based firm.
In October 2018, they found a match. Hopper had never seen McFadden's name in all the voluminous police files. She soon learned that the man nicknamed "Animal" was among Texas's most infamous killers.
Born in 1948, McFadden — a heavyset man with a thoroughly tattooed torso — was convicted of two counts of rape in Texas in 1972 and sentenced to 15 years in prison, according to a timeline produced by the Portland police. But just six years later, he was paroled. Then, on June 22, 1979, one month before Hlavka's death, he kidnapped and sexually assaulted another Texas woman. In October 1979, he was arrested for violating his parole and later sentenced to a life term, but again paroled early in 1985.
McFadden became a household name in the Lone Star State the next year thanks to a horrific crime and a heart-pounding escape from jail. On May 4, 1986, McFadden kidnapped Bryan Boone, 19, Gena Turner, 20, and Suzanne Harrison, 18, from a local lake where they'd gone for a night out. Harrison was found dead the next morning, sexually assaulted and strangled with her own underwear. Days later, police found Boone and Turner shot to death.
McFadden was arrested and charged in the killing spree. But then in July 1986, as he awaited trial, McFadden knocked out a sheriff's deputy and kidnapped a woman who worked as a dispatcher and jailer. He sped away, holding her at gunpoint with the deputy's .38-caliber revolver, according to a recounting of the crime spree by the Tyler Morning Telegraph, until he crashed while trying to spot a helicopter buzzing overhead.
He then held the woman hostage in a boxcar outside the rail yards for hours until she managed to flee. McFadden was eventually caught hiding at an abandoned house nearby. He was later found guilty of Harrison's death and executed in October 1999 at age 51.
But the body count left by the "Animal" apparently extended well beyond East Texas, according to the new DNA evidence uncovered in October by the genealogy lab. Hopper, the Portland detective, and her partner traveled to Texas to take more samples from McFadden's family members.
Portland, Oregon's Police press release, Portland police is asking for "anyone who might have lived in Portland during 1979 to come forward" if they recognize the photo of McFadden who was seen in Portland: https://www.portlandoregon.gov/police/news/read.cfm?id=199719
Detectives in the Cold Case Homicide Detail have identified the person responsible for the murder of 20-year-old Anna Marie Hlavka, who was found deceased on July 24, 1979, in her apartment, located at 1811 NW Couch Street.
Hlavka shared that apartment with her fianc? and sister who were both working at the time of the murder. Hlavka, who had finished her shift at the nearby McDonald's was discovered by her sister, Roseanne, who had just come home after working. It was determined later that Hlavka had been sexually assaulted and strangled with the electric cord from her clock radio.
At the time, Detectives followed up on many leads and cleared several suspects, but the case eventually went cold.
In May 2018, Detectives researched forensic genealogy using unidentified DNA profiles from homicides scenes. This technology was brought to the forefront of cold case homicide investigations with the May 2018 arrest in northern California of the "Golden State Killer." Detectives contacted Parabon NanoLabs and the Oregon State Police Crime Lab in order to determine if the Hlavka evidence was a good candidate for this type of innovative testing. Both labs agreed it met the criteria for this type of work and the DNA evidence was submitted.
In October 2018, Detectives were briefed by Parabon NanoLabs staff and the forensic genealogist who worked on the case. The forensic genealogist was able to map three of the four familial lines of the killer and identified the killer as Jerry Walter McFadden, born March 21, 1948. McFadden was a convicted murderer and was executed by the State of Texas in October 1999. Due to McFadden's execution date, his DNA profile was never entered into the FBI CODIS database for comparison.
Detectives travelled to Texas to interview McFadden's family members and obtain a confirmatory DNA standard to compare with the DNA evidence in the Hlavka murder. Detectives obtained DNA standards with their consent from members of McFadden's family. Detectives also learned McFadden traveled to the Pacific Northwest in 1979 with an acquaintance from their home town. The woman reported dropping him off in Portland and having no further contact with him.
Detectives submitted McFadden's family member's DNA to the OSP Crime Lab and received confirmatory results that Jerry Walter McFadden was the killer.
Jerry Walter McFadden was convicted multiple times of rape and eventually murder in Texas. McFadden had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for two counts of rape in 1973 and was paroled in December 1978, just eight months before Anna Marie Hlavka was murdered. In 1979, he was convicted of aggravated sexual abuse after kidnapping and raping an 18-year-old woman at knifepoint. McFadden was paroled in July 1985.
McFadden was arrested in May 1986 for the rape and slaying of an 18-year-old high school cheerleader, and the shooting of two other people.
While awaiting his capital murder trial, McFadden escaped from jail and kidnapped a female corrections officer during the escape. McFadden held the corrections officer hostage for three days while eluding law enforcement in Texas. Labeled as "the biggest manhunt in Texas history," 1200 officers assisted in apprehending McFadden. His criminal exploits were the reasoning behind changing the parole qualifications in the State of Texas.
The Cold Case Homicide Detail would like to thank Parabon NanoLabs and the Oregon State Police Crime Lab, the Hlavka family and the family members of McFadden for helping bring a resolution in this case.
Cold Case Detectives are asking anyone who might have lived in Portland during 1979 to come forward if they recognize the photo of McFadden.