Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Police in California announced they were able to use DNA evidence to solve the 1976 murder of Karen Klaas, the ex-wife of Bill Medley of the Righteous Brothers.
Klaas, 32, was found sexually assaulted and strangled in her Hermosa Beach, Calif., home, and remained in a coma for five days until her death. The incident was the city's longest-running cold case. On Monday, 41 years to the day of the crime, the Los Angeles Police Department announced it was solved.
DNA evidence identified the murder suspect as Kenneth Troyer. A suspect in several other sexual assaults and robberies, he was shot and killed in 1982 after escaping from prison.
Troyer was identified through a familial DNA search, a technology in which investigators search databases to find possible relatives of a person suspected of a crime. He was linked to Klaas' murder through a DNA sample a relative provided six years ago, Capt. Steve Katz said. At the time of Troyer's death, California had no laws requiring entry of DNA samples into a database of those convicted of sexual assault, but in later years the technique of using relatives' DNA samples was able to provide almost-perfect matches.
Klaas was divorced from Medley, a member of the singing duet The Righteous Brothers, and was remarried at the time of her death.
At the announcement Monday, Medley said, "This is something you've been hoping for or speculating about for 40 years. All of a sudden, they say, 'We got it.'...There's been a voice in the back of my head, probably Karen, telling me since about 20 years ago, 'Drop it. Let it go. This guy is either dead or he's in prison.' It's just nice to close the book on this."
