Cold case clues lead to Indiana man’s arrest after woman was raped & strangled nearly 40 years ago
A Loogootee, Indiana man was arrested in connection with the fall 1989 murder of 23-year-old Mary Luicile Willfong.
Willfong was found by deer hunters in the Georgia woods after being sexually assaulted and strangled, police said.
Over the years, police have pursued a number of suspects, but said the DNA did not match evidence taken from the victim’s body.
The case then went cold for more than 30 years.
Larry Padgett Jr., 59, was arrested and charged last week with the murder and sexual assault of 23-year-old Mary Luicile Willfong outside Atlanta, Georgia, in 1989.
Padgett was arrested by officers from various departments across the country last week in Indiana.
At the time of the murder, investigators were told that Willfong, prior to her murder, had been seen getting into a tractor-trailer with a man at the Forest Park farmers’ market outside Atlanta.
That piece of information prompted several interviews with suspects, but all were eventually scrapped.
But then, in early 2019, investigator Marc Mansfield was assigned to the newly reopened case and sent the original evidence to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab for testing with newer technology.
He also took the evidence to Miami for a genetic genealogy trace using Willfong’s DNA.
As a result of his actions, investigators were able to identify 59-year-old Larry Padgett Jr. as a suspect.
The FBI Evidence Recovery Team and the Washington Police Department in Indiana were able to obtain DNA evidence from Padgett and compare it to DNA taken from Willfong’s body.
Last week, warrants were issued for Padgett’s arrest and police headed to Indiana to arrest him.
During the course of the investigation, law enforcement officers uncovered more evidence linking Padgett to Willfong’s murder.
Padgett is currently being held in Indiana until he can be extradited.
Padgett during his arrest in Indiana last Wednesday
Padget is one of many murderers who committed murders decades ago and is now being brought to justice due to advances in DNA testing technology.
Other killers who were eventually apprehended thanks to advances in DNA tracing used by law enforcement include: the Golden State Killer, the 1987 murder of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg, and the 1998 murder of Jennifer Brinkman.
The Golden State Killer: DNA used to nab Joseph James DeAngelo decades after he terrorized Californians in a spree of murder and rape
Joseph James DeAngelo, now 77, a former police officer who evaded authorities for years as the Golden State Killer is serving multiple consecutive life sentences for sadistic rape and murder.
DeAngelo is pictured in the early 1970s when he was working with the Exeter Police Department.
Californians were terrorized in the 1970s and 1980s by the Golden State Killer before a suspect was finally apprehended.
Dozens of rapes and murders went unsolved until Joseph James DeAngelo, now 77, was caught in 2018 with the help of advances in DNA technology.
To ultimately identify and arrest DeAngelo, investigators compared the killer’s DNA from crime scenes to genetic profiles that are publicly available on genealogy websites.
Police discovered that it matched one of DeAngelo’s relatives, which ultimately led to him, proving that DNA could be the most innovative way to catch killers.
DeAngelo pleaded guilty to 13 murders and 13 rape-related charges that spanned much of California between 1975 and 1986.
He also admitted to victimizing at least 87 people at 53 separate crime scenes in 11 California counties, although some of the crimes were too old to be formally charged.
On August 21, 2020, DeAngelo was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The plea agreement spared him the death penalty.
Free ‘spit kit’ leads to conviction of 1987 Washington trucker for double murders of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg
William Talbott II, a Seattle-Tacoma trucker, was found guilty of killing 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jay Cook, in 1987. Pictured: Van Cuylenborg and Cook in front of their truck .
Talbott II was found guilty of two counts of first-degree murder in 2019. Pictured: Snohomish County Sheriff’s Deputies help Talbott into a wheelchair after being found guilty
The case went cold until a genealogy site was used to build a family tree and find the suspect.
William Talbott II, a former trucker from Seattle-Tacoma, was convicted of killing 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend, Jay Cook, 20.
The murders occurred in 1987, but Talbott was not arrested until 2018, after authorities used a genealogy website to identify him as the person who left his DNA on one of the victims.
In 2015, Talbott’s cousin Chelsea Rustad entered a contest and won a DNA “spit kit” and uploaded her profile, leading to Talbott’s connection to the murders.
He became the first person to be convicted as a result of a genealogy investigation, PEOPLE reported.
“The police told me that without my DNA, they wouldn’t have arrested him,” Rustad previously told PEOPLE. There would have been no trial. That family would never have had answers.
Advanced DNA technology used to link Jeffrey Paul Premo to DNA found on the hatchet used to kill Jennifer Brinkman in 1998
Jennifer Brinkman, 19, was murdered in 1998, but her alleged killer was not caught until 2022.
Jeffrey Paul Premo, 52, was arrested in December 2022 in connection with the 1998 death of 19-year-old Jennifer Brinkman.
The arrest was made more than 20 years after Brinkman’s murder with the help of advanced DNA technology and genetic genealogy.
Investigators say they matched his DNA to an ax used in the murder found at a crime scene in 1998, PEOPLE reported.
Brinkman is believed to have met her killer over a phone chat line. Investigators early on in the investigation found a letter the suspect wrote to Brinkman before his death that indicated the couple had met, police said at a news conference in 2022.
Premo was booked into the Snohomish County Jail and posted $250,000 bail in December 2022.