A suspect tied by genetic genealogy to the 1972 murder of Jody Loomis died by suicide just before a jury convicted him, the New York Times reports.
It adds that Loomis was 20 years old when sexually assaulted and killed while riding her bicycle to a horse stable in Snohomish County, north of Seattle, Washington. According to the Times, investigators recovered semen the scene, which underwent DNA testing in 2008 with no matches found. But in 2018, investigators worked with Parabon NanoLabs to apply genetic genealogy techniques to the case, which the Times says led them to Terrence Miller.
Miller was charged last year in the cases, the Times reports, after investigators collected a coffee cup he discarded, which was then matched to the semen sample from the case. It adds that Miller was out on bond during the trial and died three hours before the jury returned its guilty verdict.