PATRICK Gilham has been arrested and charged with second-degree murder in the death of Roxanne Wood – and college students used Post-it notes and a cigarette clue to find the killer.
Gilham pleaded no contest to the 1987 murder of Wood, 30, agreeing to a minimum sentence of 23 years in prison.
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Gilham, 67, was charged in February with Open Murder and Breaking and Entering of an Occupied Dwelling House for the murder, reports WNDU.
Terry Wood found his wife dead in their Niles Township home early on February 20, 1987. They had driven separately to go bowling and Roxanne Wood returned home first.
Her throat had been cut.
The case was reopened in 2001 and 2020 by investigators from Michigan State Police.
Students in Western Michigan University’s Cold Case Program helped detectives find Gilham on their first case working together.
Students collected and sorted piles of evidence, including digitized post-it notes and unlimited case files.
Evidence from the scene was examined forensically using genetic genealogy by Identifinders International LLC and the MSP Forensic Laboratory in Grand Rapids, Michigan, according to a police statement.
After Gilham was identified as a suspect, he was “surveilled extensively” by undercover state police troopers and interviewed twice.
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During this time, he discarded a cigarette that detectives collected.
They then used the DNA from the cigarette to confirm that DNA found at the crime scene belonged to Gilham, Det. Christensen said, NBC News reports.
He was arrested in February just days away from the 35th anniversary of the killing.
Identifiers International said in a statement that the case was a “landmark in the use of forensic genetic genealogy (FGG) as the decades-old DNA sample used to identify Roxanne’s assailant was very low level and highly degraded, representing the contents of only a few cells of his body.”
“This case was the toughest technical challenge we have faced, but it shows that we should never give up hope,” said Colleen Fitzpatrick, President of Identifinders. “We are grateful to the Michigan State Police for having faith in us for the careful decision making it took to process the DNA and solve the case”.
