Kentucky law enforcement authorities say DNA tests have solved the brutal murder of a teenager whose body was found in a roadside ditch in 1976.
Kentucky State Police investigators say Thomas W. Dunaway was linked by the tests to the murder of then 16-year-old Carol Sue Klaber, the Boone County Sheriff’s Office announced on Wednesday.
Klaber’s remains were found on June 5, 1976. An autopsy concluded that she was sexually assaulted, strangled and suffered blunt force trauma.
Her body was found in a ditch along a road in Walton, Ky.
In September, DNA and fingerprints from the crime scene were given to Othram, a Texas-based laboratory that specializes in forensic genealogy to solve unsolved murders. A DNA profile created by the company offered leads that detectives used to positively identify Dunaway of Park Hills, Ky., as the likely killer, according to the sheriff’s office said.
Dunaway, who was 19 in June of 1976, had an “extensive and violent” criminal history. He died in 1990 at the age of 33, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.
