EVERETT, Wash. (AP) - A Washington man went on trial this week on a charge of first-degree murder for a crime committed 48 years ago.
Opening statements began Monday in the Snohomish County Superior Court trial of 78-year-old Terrence Miller, The Daily Herald reported.
A couple found 20-year-old Jody Loomis with a gunshot wound to her head on a dirt road in Mill Creek in August 1972. Loomis was pronounced dead at a hospital and the homicide went unsolved for decades.
Miller, who was 30 at the time of Loomis’ death, was arrested by Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives in 2019.
Miller was connected to the case through forensic genealogy, which combines crime scene DNA evidence with genetic genealogy databases. DNA from semen left behind on one of Loomis’ boots matched Miller, authorities said.
Deputy Prosecutor Craig Matheson told a jury that Miller did not know Loomis and therefore his DNA should not have been on her boot.
Defense attorney Frederic Moll denied Miller was the killer and said deputies failed to wear gloves at the autopsy, evidence was lost and mishandled over the years and the boot was contaminated with a lab worker’s DNA.
“This case is as much a mystery now as it was in 1972,” Moll said.
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