MARINETTE (WTAQ-WLUK) – Marinette County Sheriff’s Department has released the results of a new technology that they hope helps them solve a 42-year-old murder case.
For $4,000, the Marinette County Sheriff’s Office hired Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia to create a new sketch through a process called DNA phenotyping.
The Marinette County Sheriff’s Office says it reached out to advanced DNA technology in the 1976 deaths of David Schuldes, 25, and Ellen Matheys, 24.
They were both shot while camping in McClintock Park in the western part of the county.
Matheys was sexually assaulted before she was killed.
At the time, two witnesses reported hearing gunshots and seeing a man walking through the park, carrying a rifle.
With new images of what a 1976 murder suspect may have looked like then and now, Sheriff Jerry Suave says it is a new direction they can take to get closure, even if they can’t get a conviction.
“It is possible that this person is dead. For closure for us and the victims family, we certainly would take this right to a tombstone to see if we can get a match that way.
Suave says now the hope is to get the image out into the public to see if anybody can draw any connections.
“What we are hopeful for is that public is going to see this, somebody is going to make the right call and we are going to swab the right person and make a match in this yet.”
The news conference comes on the 42nd anniversary of the shootings.
“This is science at work,” said Marinette County Sheriff, Jerry Sauve. “To me this is fascinating, it’s exciting and a huge development in this case.”
