Police in Kent, Washington, announced a significant breakthrough in a decades-old murder case, thanks to DNA evidence from a cigarette butt. Kenneth Duane Kundert, 65, was arrested in Arkansas on a warrant for the murder of Dorothy “Dottie” Maria Silzel, who was found dead in her Kent home in 1980. Silzel, a 30-year-old Boeing training supervisor, was strangled, suffocated, and sexually assaulted.
Investigators initially collected DNA evidence during the initial investigation, but it wasn't until advancements in DNA technology in 2016 that a partial DNA profile from the crime scene matched an unknown individual, referred to as Individual A. In 2022, genetic genealogy identified 11 possible suspects, including Kundert and his brother.
