DNA Leads Police To Arrest Sioux Falls Man, 79, In 1974 Willmar Murder Of Mae Herman
WILLMAR, Minn. (AP) — Police on Thursday arrested a South Dakota man in a 1974 cold-case homicide in Minnesota after using DNA to link him to the killing 46 years ago.
Authorities arrested the 79-year-old man without incident at his home in Sioux Falls. He was arrested on a warrant for second-degree murder in the fatal stabbing of 74-year-old Mae Herman of Willmar, in western Minnesota, Willmar Police Chief Jim Felt said in a news release.
Family members found Herman dead in her home on Jan. 27, 1974. Despite decades of investigation, no clear suspects emerged.
But a recent cold-case review found that the man was a suspect shortly after the killing, but evidence and interviews at that time were inconclusive. A search warrant was obtained for a DNA sample, which matched the suspect to evidence collected in the 1974 killing, Felt said.
The suspect is in the Minnehaha County Jail awaiting extradition to Minnesota.
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