Almost 40 years later, a 75-year-old Texas man was arrested for sexual assault before strangling a woman and igniting her body in the field. This was a horrific crime once claimed by the infamous self-proclaimed serial killer. ..
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office on Friday said Thomas Elvin Darnell was charged with murder in connection with the March 1983 murder of Laura Marie Purchase. Darnell was arrested at his home in Kansas on May 11 and handed over to Texas on Thursday. He has not been detained in a prison at the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities said the purchase had been missing for months before Darnell sexually assaulted her, then fatally strangled her and set her body on fire in the woodlands near the highway.Of purchase A naked body was found still “posed” at the scene March 17, 1983, By patrol deputy Responded to reports of roadside fires in areas known for 18-wheeled vehicles. She was clearly identified in May 1986. Prior to her murder, Purchase went under the nickname “Howie” and is said to have lived in Houston with a man who played in the local band “Malibu”.
Darnell’s arrest is the second time authorities have believed that the proceedings have been settled. Henry Lee Lucas, also known as the Highway Stalker, originally confessed to the murder before she was identified. He was convicted of her murder in 1986.Lucas Once confessed to committing 600 murders between 1960 and 1983 He was convicted of killing 11 people and sentenced to death.
Lucas’ sentence was finally commuted to life imprisonment in 1998 before he died of natural causes in 2001.At least 200 Lucas’ decisions Murder confession Since then, the sheriff’s department has said it has been exposed.His murder, and the tendency for false confessions, is on Netflix Confession killer..
In 2007, Sheriff Montgomery County Sheriff’s Cold Case Corps considered one of these false confessions to be a purchased murder after retesting the DNA found at the crime scene. Lucas’s alleged criminal partner, Otis Elwood Tool, has also eliminated fraud.
“In October 2019, researchers sent DNA evidence for phylogenetic testing. The study lead generated from the genealogy report was a potential suspect, a 75-year-old man in Kansas City, Kansas. He showed one Thomas Elvin Darnell. As a result of the investigation, a DNA search order for Thomas Darnell was obtained, “the security officer’s office said in a press release on Friday.
The discovery sent a detective to Kansas City, Kansas in March to collect new DNA samples from Darnell. Last month, the sample was determined to be a positive match.
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