How a 44-year-old unsolved murder case in the USA was solved with a cigarette butt

Authorities linked Kundert to the crime scene through DNA traces from the cigarette butt.

A decades-old unsolved murder case was finally solved thanks to a discarded cigarette butt, leading to the arrest of 65-year-old Kenneth Kundert in connection with the brutal murder of Dorothy Silzel. According to New York Post, The 30-year-old Boeing trainer and part-time pizza delivery worker was found raped and strangled in her Kent, Washington, apartment in February 1980. Her body was discovered during a welfare check on February 26, three days after she was last seen alive on February 23. Authorities have now linked Kundert to the crime scene through DNA evidence from the cigarette butt, closing a case that remained unsolved for 44 years.

According to the charging documents, Ms. Silzel's body showed signs of a violent struggle. She had been brutally beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted. She was left partially naked in her home. At the time of the murder, investigators swabbed semen samples from the crime scene, but DNA technology available in 1980 was not advanced enough to identify the perpetrator.

The samples have been preserved and await future breakthroughs in forensic science.

The case remained dormant for over 40 years until March 2022, when a forensic genealogist uploaded the DNA profile to two databases and reignited the investigation. The search yielded 11 potential suspects, all first cousins, according to court documents. In September, Kent authorities focused on Kenneth Kundert and contacted the Van Buren County Sheriff's Office in Arkansas to obtain his DNA.

Coincidentally, Kundert was already under investigation for another attack. During an interview with the sheriff's office, Kundert exhibited strange behavior: He carefully collected every cigarette butt he smoked and placed it in his pocket.

While smoking in a Walmart parking lot earlier this year, he carelessly tossed a cigarette butt into a receptacle. Attentive investigators retrieved the butt from the receptacle and sent it to a lab for analysis. The results showed that the cigarette butt's DNA was identical to DNA evidence collected at the 1980 crime scene, finally linking Kundert to the murder of Dorothy Silzel.

Although there appeared to be no direct connection between them, investigators found that a relative of Kundert's lived in an apartment near Silzel's home at the time of the murder. In addition, Kundert, then 20 years old, had been working in Washington state around 1987, about seven years after the crime.

He was arrested by Van Buren County Sheriff's Office officials on August 20 and is currently being held on $3 million bail. He is scheduled to be extradited to Washington at a later date.