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An Arkansas man has been arrested and charged with a decades-old rape and homicide of a younger lady in Washington after DNA from his cigarette linked him to the sufferer.
“I used to be simply so relieved,” Kent Police Det. Sgt. Tim Ford, the lead investigator on the case, instructed Fox Information Digital.
Kent detectives and Van Buren County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Kenneth Duane Kundert, 65, Aug. 20 at his dwelling close to Clinton, Arkansas. He has been charged with first-degree homicide.
The arrest brings to a detailed nearly 45 years of trying to find a suspect.
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Kenneth Duane Kundert reserving photograph (Van Buren County Sheriff’s Workplace)
On the night time of Feb. 23, 1980, 30-year-old Dorothy “Dottie” Marie Silzel was final seen after her shift on the native pizza restaurant in Washington, based on police charging paperwork.
Three days later, after Silzel’s family and friends grew involved, officers went to her rental, the place they discovered her partially nude physique. Her loss of life was dominated a murder resulting from suffocation, and police decided she had been sexually assaulted.
The case went chilly till 2015, when Silzel’s brother known as Sgt. Ford, who labored as a supervisor within the Kent Police Main Crimes Unit on the time.
“As soon as I bought off the cellphone with him and listened to his story, and I knew it was a extremely outdated case … I simply started studying it, and I bought all the things I might discover,” Ford, who has been with the Kent Police Division 28 years, instructed Fox Information Digital. “Immediately, I used to be hooked on this case … and I could not even inform you why. I simply wished to work and remedy that factor.”
Ford has spent the final 9 years making an attempt to unravel the case. As his place on the police division modified through the years and he labored on different assignments, he stated he actually carried the case field with him from place to position.
“I used to be going to retire in March of this yr, 2024, however I did not need to retire till it was solved,” he stated.
In February 1980, Silzel was an teacher for Boeing who labored half time at Gaetano’s Pizza restaurant and volunteered with the Particular Olympics.
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“A part of the issue with the case was … she knew so many individuals,” Ford stated. “So, you may’t rule anyone out. So, making an attempt to determine how I’ll slender down the suspect pool was fairly daunting.”
But, he by no means gave up on the case, crediting the detectives who labored on it earlier than him.
“The hardest ones to unravel are the crimes of alternatives and … the random crimes as a result of most homicide victims, they know their killer in some unspecified time in the future. They’ve some kind of a connection,” Ford stated. “And so the detectives again in 1980, they did one of the best they might with the knowledge that they had and the expertise that they had.”
Dorothy Silzel volunteered with the Particular Olympics. (Kent Police Division )
As DNA expertise superior through the years, a male DNA profile, labeled as “Particular person A,” was obtained from samples from Silzel’s physique, based on fees.
This profile was entered into the Mixed DNA Index System (“CODIS”), a searchable laptop program that manages native, state and nationwide databases and comprises DNA profiles from convicted offenders, arrested people and crime scene proof.
Ford and his group reached out to Identifinders Worldwide, a forensic family tree firm in California. In March 2022, senior forensic genealogist Misty Gillis carried out family tree comparisons of the DNA profile from “Particular person A.” She recognized 11 potential suspects, who’re all associated as first cousins.
“We’re lucky right this moment that expertise has superior a lot that, you recognize, scientists … can put the opposite items collectively that we regular individuals cannot see,” Ford stated.
He and different investigators started researching and gathering covert DNA samples from the recognized group of potential suspects, however not one of the samples matched the profile of “Particular person A.”
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In September 2023, detectives started researching two of the 11 potential suspects — brothers Kenneth Kundert and Kurt Kundert, who lived in Arkansas. Ford then coordinated with the Van Buren County Sheriff’s Workplace to help with the investigation. When Kurt Kundert’s DNA was not a match, he was excluded as a suspect, and authorities then targeted their consideration on Kenneth.
“We had been capable of find our goal … and do surveillance on him and watch as he smoked a cigarette in a Walmart car parking zone after which finally extinguish it and drop it within the cigarette butt receptacle that is outdoors the door,” Ford stated. “And we simply collected all of the cigarette butts in there … we find yourself sending off three of them as much as the lab, and considered one of them was a match.”
Investigators additionally found that Kenneth Kundert’s brother probably lived in an condo complicated simply 1,200 ft away from the place Silzel lived and was discovered useless.
On Aug. 20, police arrested Kundert for the homicide of Silzel. He’s being held at Van Buren correctional heart on $3,000,000 bail, awaiting extradition to Washington state. Kundert has a historical past of convictions and arrests for misdemeanor offenses in 4 states.
It was not instantly clear if Kundert had retained an legal professional.
Dorothy “Dottie” Silzel was simply 30 years outdated when she was murdered. (Kent Police Division)
Ford stated Kundert’s arrest was “surreal,” including, “The very first thing I did was textual content the household. … I am glad we had been capable of get some kind of closure for them.”
“Hopefully, we will convict this man of doing what he did. He is a monster,” Silzel’s niece, Leanne Milligan, instructed Fox13.
“To killers who assume they bought away with it, they need to be nervous about each knock on the door as a result of it would not matter what number of years it has been, that knock is coming,” Casey McNerthney with the King County Prosecutor’s Workplace instructed Fox13.
Ford credited his colleagues with serving to him on the case, saying “it was a group effort,” whereas Silzel’s sister-in-law, Carol Yantzer, instructed Fox13, “Tim has positively elevated the Kent Police Division very excessive.”
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Ford stated forensic family tree “can solely assist us and provides hope for different future victims or victims of the previous.”
The connection between Kundert and Silzel stays unclear, and authorities are nonetheless investigating the case.
Cigarette butt helps Washington police hunt 1980 homicide suspect throughout nation: ‘I used to be hooked on this case’
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