Sept. 4 (UPI) -- Photos of socks found at a crime scene and a suspect's home led to the arrest Tuesday of a 52-year-old Philadelphia man in a cold case that stumped police for 28 years.
Authorities charged Theodore Dill Donahue with murder, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence, obstruction of justice and false reports to police in connection with the death of Denise Sharon Kulb in 1991.
The body of Kulb, who was Donahue's estranged girlfriend at the time, was found abandoned in a remote area in the Philadelphia suburbs. Donahue said at the time that Kulb ran for help after they were robbed at knifepoint while doing crack and he never saw her again.
When Pennsylvania State Police re-interviewed him in 2015, he gave a different account, admitting he last saw Kulb at a bar the day she went missing. The break in the case came from a lone yellow sock at the scene where Kulb's body was found.
Authorities confirmed through new photo-enhancing technology that a similar sock found at Donahue's home matched the sock on Kulb's body.
"[Kulb] was a daughter, a sister, a mother, a friend," Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said in a statement Tuesday. "She deserved far better than to be killed and left in a location unknown to those who mourned her.
"Thanks to tenacious work by the Pennsylvania State Police Criminal Investigation Assessment Unit -- and by Trooper Andrew Martin in particular -- we are within reach of securing justice for this woman, who should have been 55 years old today. We are determined to help deliver closure and some peace of mind to those who have waited for a resolution of this criminal investigation for nearly 30 years."
Donahue was being held without bond.
"He's not guilty," Donahue's attorney R. Emmett Madden told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "He denies the charges, and we will dispute it in court."
Authorities said that during Donahue's initial interview in 1991, he said his nickname was Ted Bundy, an apparent reference to the serial killer who was executed in 1989. Authorities accused Donahue of revealing details about Kulb's death scene to acquaintances that only an eyewitness or the perpetrator would have known.
