Just over a week ago, the Las Vegas Metro Police Department (LVMPD) announced they identified the suspect in the cold case sexual assault and murder of 16-year-old Kim Bryant, who was abducted in January 1979. Now, LVMPD has tied that same suspect to yet another cold case sexual assault and murder, this one four years later in 1983.
On Dec. 31, 1983, 22-year-old Diana Hanson was reported missing after failing to return home as expected. Her body was found later that day, and a subsequent autopsy confirmed she had been sexually assaulted.
During the investigation, detectives recovered suspect DNA from Hanson’s body but were unable to match it. For the next 38 years, the LVMPD Homicide Section continued to work leads on the case, but it eventually went cold.
But then, detectives solved the seemingly unrelated murder of Bryant last week—and they realized it was anything but unrelated.
Bryant was reported missing on Jan. 26, 1979, after she did not return home from school. A month later, detectives found her body in a desert area. She had been brutally sexually assaulted and murdered. DNA evidence was found on her body, but detectives were unable to find a match. Throughout the years, LVMPD continued to investigate and generate multiple persons of interest, but ultimately the case stalled.
This year, through LVMPD’s continued partnership with Othram, the DNA analysis company reexamined the DNA evidence from the crime scene in hopes advanced testing could generate new leads. Othram used its proprietary Forensic-Grade Genome Sequencing to build a genealogical profile from the crime scene DNA evidence, then turned over investigative leads to LVMPD.
The DNA results and subsequent leads led detectives to Johnny Peterson, who would have been 19 years old at the time of the crime. Peterson died in January 1993 so no arrest could be made.
That’s not the end of the story, though.
Soon after the Bryant announcement, LVMPD Homicide received information regarding Peterson’s possible involvement in Diana Hanson’s murder, which occurred four years later.
As a result, detectives requested a direct comparison of DNA evidence recovered from Hanson’s body to that of Peterson. The comparison confirmed Peterson was the suspect who murdered and sexually assaulted Hanson. He would have been 23 years old at the time of the murder.
This isn’t the first time the combination of Othram and LVMPD has solved a 2-for-1 cold case. In July, Othram tested and built a genealogical profile from only 120 picograms of DNA left from the 1989 sexual assault and murder of 14-year-old Stephanie Isaacson. Genealogical research indicated the suspect was Darren Marchand, a Las Vegas area resident who committed suicide in 1995.
Marchand had been previously arrested in connection to the murder of Nanette Vanderburg in 1986, but the case was dismissed. With Marchand again tied to a sexual assault/murder, the DNA from the case involving Nanette was compared to the DNA located in Isaacson’s case—and it was a match.
“[This] demonstrates the power of this technology and how, if applied on a massive scale, it can create social change and justice for so many families and investigators,” Michael Vogen, Director of Case Management at Othram, told Forensic.
LVMPD Homicide Lieutenant Ray Spencer said detectives will continue to review homicide cold cases for any other possible connections to Peterson.
“It is all too common for cases involving sexual violence to remain unsolved, even after traditional forensic DNA testing is utilized. In spite of heroic efforts to end the backlog of hundreds of thousands of sex assault kits, about 85% of sex assault kits tested through CODIS will not produce an identity for the suspect. This creates a new backlog of ‘tested but not solved.’ This case is an example of what can happen to this new unsolved backlog when new technology is applied after traditional forensic DNA testing does not lead to an identification,” Vogen concluded.
Photo: Diana Hanson. Credit: LVMPD