[ad_1]
Since 1992, when the teacher was found murdered at her home in East Lampeter Township, Pennsylvania, Vince Mirack had asked for answers.
He has often struggled to advance the business and maintain the public interest. He placed a billboard asking for information that could help resolve the case.
But the authorities had no suspects.
Then, thanks to a piece of chewing gum and a bottle of water, the authorities identified the suspect Raymond Rowe, a disc jockey known locally as "DJ Freez".
Rowe's lawyer said his client admitted to murdering Christy Mirack, the prosecutor said.
"The person standing next to me has acknowledged his guilt," said Patricia Spotts.
Rowe's guilty plea includes a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole with a consecutive term of imprisonment of 60 to 120 years, said the Advocate General.
In accepting him, Rowe turned Tuesday to Mirack 's family, who had waited over 26 years for answers.
"I can not imagine what you're going through," said the killer. "I'm sorry."
Still, Vince Mirack had a burning question when he addressed Rowe in court, the prosecutor reported.
"Why?" He asked. "Why are we sitting here today?"
New DNA technology helps solve the case
Christy Mirack was found on the floor of her living room on December 21, 1992. She was strangled, beaten with a wooden cutting board and raped.
DNA was collected at the scene, but there was no correspondence – until last year, when the sample was sent to Parabon NanoLabs, a DNA technology company, for genetic testing.
Parabon NanoLabs generated a genotype file from the DNA sample, then a composite "DNA phenotype" of the attributes of the killer – including hair, eye color and complexion. skin, said the general counsel.
This helped the experts to get an idea of what the killer looked like when he was getting older. They released composite images to the public in 2017 and submitted them to a public genealogy database, which brought matches from Rowe's relatives.
This database, GEDmatch, shows the amount of DNA shared between two people, said Parabon NanoLabs president Steven Armentrout. Members of the public voluntarily send their DNA to the database, making it an important resource for genealogists and investigators.
GEDmatch pointed at Rowe's family. Parabon's genealogical research NanoLabs has named Rowe as "a strong and viable suspect," said the attorney general.
To be certain, the investigators found Rowe in May during a party at the school where he was playing music. Infiltration agents took his DNA from an eraser and a bottle of water that he had used and sent to the organized crime laboratory.
This corresponds to the DNA found on the scene of the murder.
Rowe was arrested at home in June.
Statistics can not satisfy the call of a brother
Because of DNA technology, the chances are "astronomical" that anyone has committed the crime, said Lancaster County County Attorney Craig Stedman. Indeed, the probability of the author being one of the others is 1 in 200 octillions among the white population.
These are numbers with 27 and 30 zeros, he said.
"In other words," said Stedman on Tuesday, "it was the accused, there are only 7.6 billion people in the world."
But even these statistics and Rowe's confessions can not answer Vince Mirack's persistent question: "Why?"
Justin Lear and Maya Eliahou of CNN contributed to this report.
[ad_2]Source link