CNN
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Nearly 50 years after the cold case of a missing 19-year-old girl from an Illinois village, authorities have identified her killer through new DNA evidence.
Kathy Hall went missing in March 1979 while picking up her sister at a shopping center near North Aurora, local authorities said.
Police initially investigated the case as a missing persons case, but Halle’s body was found in the Fox River three weeks later, North Aurora Police Department Detective Ryan Peete said at a news conference Wednesday. .
After years of investigation, authorities determined there was not enough evidence to identify a suspect, and the case remained unsolved.
Peet said it wasn’t until 2020 that authorities re-examined the case after DNA from Bruce Lyndall, a suspected serial killer who committed suicide in 1981, was linked to the murder of another woman named Pamela Maurer. It is said that it was after that.
North Aurora authorities used new forensic technology to link DNA evidence found on Halle’s clothing to Lindal’s DNA collected while solving Maurer’s case.
“Lindall was connected to several other incidents in the area from that period,” Pete said. “This new evidence, along with evidence from similar incidents involving Lyndall, allows us to conclude that Lyndall was responsible for the death of Kathy Hall.”
Authorities now believe Lindal, who frequented the shopping center where Halle worked, abducted the victim from the parking lot of the apartment complex and drove him to where her body was later discovered.
A statement from Halle’s family read at a press conference said: “Revisiting this case has been incredibly difficult, but we are deeply grateful that we are finally able to bring closure after 45 long years.” “I am doing so,” he said. “Thanks to advances in DNA technology and groundbreaking tools, we hope that other families won’t have to endure the same pain and anxiety that we have faced for so many years.”
