Police find killer thanks to cigarette butt

Dorothy Silzel's body was found in her apartment in Washington State in February 1980. According to the coroner, the 30-year-olds had been raped and then strangled. The investigation into the perpetrator came to nothing. It was not until 44 years later that a discarded cigarette butt finally led to the arrest of the suspected killer.

According to the Seattle Times, Silzel had worked for Boeing and lived alone. Investigators found sperm from the perpetrator, but DNA analysis methods were not advanced enough at the time to determine his identity. The unsolved case fell into oblivion until a cold case team from the Kent Police Department reopened the case in September 2022.

The police officers entered the collected genetic samples into various criminal and sex offender databases. There were eleven matches – because all of the potential offenders were first cousins ​​and had previous convictions for various crimes.

Kenneth Kundert must now go to prison for a murder he committed 44 years ago.Van Buren County Sheriff's Office

A cigarette butt convicted the murderer

The investigators' investigations revealed that only Kenneth Kundert could have been responsible for the crime. He was 20 at the time and had lived with a relative in Kent – just 50 meters from Silzel's apartment. The cops' theory: Kundert could have seen Silzel in a pizza delivery shop where the woman occasionally helped out. They tracked down the now 65-year-old in the state of Arkansas.

The police from Washington flew to the southern state and followed Kundert's trail. They saw him smoking a cigarette in a supermarket parking lot and then throwing it into a trash can. The officers fished out the butt. The DNA from Kundert's saliva matched the killer's sperm sample.

Kundert was arrested in the small town of Clinton in Arkansas and is awaiting extradition to Kent, where he will be tried for murder and rape. ■