A woman’s killing was unsolved for 44 years. A cigarette butt just led to an arrest, police say

Kenneth Duane Kundert, 65, was arrested in Arkansas last week on a warrant accusing him of murder in the death of 30-year-old Dorothy “Dottie” Maria Silzel, police in Kent, Washington, said Wednesday.

Silzel was found dead on February 26, 1980, inside her home in Kent, about 30 minutes south of Seattle, Kent Police Chief Rafael Padilla said in a Wednesday news conference. She died from strangling or suffocation, and suffered a blow to her head, police said, citing an autopsy report. She also had been sexually assaulted, according to court documents provided by prosecutors.

Silzel was last seen three nights earlier leaving a pizza shop where she worked on the weekends to supplement her income as a full-time training supervisor for Boeing, police said.

Friends and colleagues requested a welfare check at Silzel’s home after she had not reported to work at Boeing for two days, which was highly unusual, according to police.

Although DNA technology was not advanced enough to identify a suspect at the time, DNA evidence was collected during the initial investigation, police said.

Investigators with the Washington State Patrol crime lab built a DNA profile from the evidence for an unknown man they called Individual A, according to police.

In 2016, advancement in DNA technology allowed investigators to obtain a partial DNA profile from the victim’s bathrobe at the crime scene that matched the DNA profile of Individual A, police said.

Investigators compared multiple DNA samples throughout the years to the partial DNA profile, but none matched Individual A, according to police.

A breakthrough finally came in 2022, when crime lab investigators used genetic genealogy to identify 11 possible suspects, police said. That forensic method compares unidentified DNA to DNA that can be found in genealogy databases, potentially allowing researchers to find relatives of the unknown person. That, combined with other detective work, can help investigators identify potential suspects.

The method has been used in recent years to crack some of the nation’s coldest cases, including the arrest of the Golden State Killer in 2018.

In the Washington case, investigators began collecting DNA samples from the potential suspects to compare to Individual A’s DNA profile, Kent police said.

Two of the potential suspects were Kenneth Kundert and his brother, both living in Arkansas, police said.

“In September 2023, Kent (detectives) began to look into the (brothers) and were advised that they were both in custody for an unrelated assault,” Kent police said in a news release.

Kent police coordinated with a sheriff’s office in Arkansas to request voluntary DNA samples from the brothers, according to police. While Kundert’s brother gave his sample willingly, Kundert declined, Kent police said.

Police discovered Kenneth Kundert had ties to Washington state. He and his brother had lived in an apartment complex about 1,200 feet from where Silzel’s condominium, police said. Court documents from prosecutors say the brothers lived at the complex at the time of Silzel’s death.

Looking for evidence Kundert was at the scene of Silzel’s killing, Kent police in March traveled to Clinton, Arkansas, where they kept tabs on him with the help of the FBI and local law enforcement officers, they said.

During that surveillance, they picked up a cigarette butt that Kundert discarded, police said in a probable cause affidavit. A crime lab report indicated the DNA profile from the cigarette butt belonged to Individual A, according to the affidavit.

Kundert was being held Thursday at an Arkansas county jail, according to jail records. He he was awaiting extradition to Washington state, police said.

Kundert is charged in Washington’s King County with first degree murder, court documents show. Bail has been set at $3 million.

CNN is trying to determine whether Kundert has obtained an attorney. No attorney was listed in court documents or in online court records.

Silzel was originally from Manden, North Dakota, where she graduated from high school and worked for a school district, Padilla said. She lived in the Seattle area for about 12 years before her death.

-BBC