Detectives with the Michigan State Police (MSP) First District Cold Case Unit have identified a suspect in the 1982 murder of 16-year-old Kimberly Louiselle, of South Lyon, last seen on March 20, 1982, near Eight Mile and Merriman roads in the Livonia area. The teen’s body was located weeks later, on April 14, 1982, nearly 20 miles away, off a wooded trail in the Island Lake Recreation Area in Green Oak Township.
For decades, investigators from the MSP and Livingston County Sheriff's Department worked the case with no substantial leads.
In the summer of 2022, MSP’s First District Cold Case Unit re-opened the case and partnered with students from Michigan State University’s School of Criminal Justice to re-examine Louiselle’s murder.
The team of detectives and students spent several months reviewing the case, organizing and digitizing paper files, analyzing property and evidence, and resubmitting items of evidence to MSP’s Forensic Science Division for testing.
During this same time, detectives from the Livingston County Cold Case Team were working on the 1983 homicide of 19-year-old Christine Castiglione of Redford. Utilizing forensic genealogy, they linked Castiglione’s homicide to 26-year-old Charles David Shaw, who died in 1983. As a result of this work, a genetic profile for Shaw was entered into CODIS.
In June 2023, the MSP Forensic Science Division located DNA on evidence resubmitted in Louiselle’s case by MSP’s First District Cold Case Unit. The sample was entered into CODIS, revealing a match to DNA in the Castiglione case—linking Shaw to physical evidence recovered from the body of Louiselle.
Based on information received from Shaw's family, he was described as a sex addict with a disturbing life who struggled with mental illness. Shaw had several interactions with law enforcement beginning at a young age. One such interaction resulted in his arrest in 1981 for the attempted abduction of a woman in the Fowlerville McDonald's parking lot.
Detectives are exploring the possibility that Shaw is responsible for additional crimes during the early 1970s until his death in November 1983. Anyone with information is asked to contact D/Sgt. Larry Rothman of the MSP at 313-407-9379.
Republished courtesy of MSP.