Top law enforcement officials in Alaska thanked their counterparts in Oregon and praised DNA technology for finally closing an unsolved murder case after more than 40 years of frustration.
Shelley Connolly disappeared in January 1978. Her body was found along the Seward Highway by tourists looking to photograph the Alaska landscape. Police concluded that she had been sexually assaulted and murdered.
“The case, despite the persistence of many investigators, became cold,” Alaska State Police Col. Barry Wilson said at a press conference Tuesday.
Officers in Alaska said they had never given up hope that they would find Connolly’s killer.
In the 1990s, police were hopeful as they circled in on a handful of suspects, but none was charged. The introduction of DNA analysis in Alaska in 1997 gave investigators further optimism, but the profile the state compiled didn’t yield a suspect. Neither did uploading the DNA profile into the federal DNA data system in 2003, according to Alaska police officials.
A break came earlier this year when DNA analysis linked a man living in Gresham to genetic material from the crime through an analysis by Parabon Nanolabs, a Virginia-based company that contracts with law enforcement to do genetic analysis. Police investigators say they were able to confirm that the Gresham man, Donald F. McQuade, was a 21-year-old living in Alaska at the time of Connolly’s murder.
Alaska officials said McQuade had not previously been a suspect.
“This guy was never on the radar. We had no idea he was involved until this process developed him as a potential suspect,” said Randy McPherron, an investigator with the Alaska State Police.
Oregon authorities said McQuade was arrested without incident last Friday. He's 62.