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‘Unprovable’ Rape Kit Solves Decades-Old Cold Case Murder
Testing forensic evidence from the 1994 crime has led to the arrest of a suspect in the 1979 murder of Patricia Carnahan.
Authorities in California and Washington state have announced that a cold case murder looks to have been solved after evidence from an apparently unrelated crime was tested for DNA using modern techniques.
Harold Warren Carpenter, 63, will now face charges for the strangulation murder of Patricia Carnahan at Lake Tahoe more than 40 years ago, the El Dorado County District Attorney says.
Stripped of her identity
It was September 28th 1979 when three people out day-tripping in Sugar Pine Point State Park called a local news reporter to say they had discovered a body at a picnic area on Lake Tahoe’s west shore.
When police arrived, they came upon a chilling scene. The woman had been beaten and strangled to death, and a lost shoe and multiple signs of repeated struggles suggested she had been chased through the campground before her attacker finally caught up with her.
Detectives thought she was probably a tourist travelling alone, but there was no sign of her vehicle or of any other belongings that could…
