Cold case cracked after 41 years: Evidence found 644 km away ties suspect to 1985 motel murder

A man from Ohio has been charged with the 1985 murder of a traveling salesman at a US motel, after forensic evidence linked him to the decades-old crime scene.

Cold case cracked after 41 years: Evidence found 644 km away ties suspect to 1985 motel murder

A man from Ohio has been indicted for a homicide committed four decades ago at a motel in the United States. Randy McAllister stands accused of killing John Warren, who was found dead in October 1985 inside a room at a Holiday Inn that has since been demolished.

The victim, an employee at an auto-parts company, had traveled to the area for business meetings. The following morning, he was discovered brutally slain in his room. Personal belongings were missing from the scene, and his vehicle had also been stolen.

Initial investigators failed to reach definitive conclusions, despite examining multiple leads and tips. Some of the stolen items were later found discarded behind a restaurant in Georgia — roughly 644 kilometers from the crime scene — just days after the killing. The victim's car was eventually located in Florida.

Three men from South Carolina had initially been identified as suspects, but charges against them were dropped after polygraph tests supported their accounts.

The case remained unsolved for decades. In 2019, authorities reopened the file and sent recovered items to forensic laboratories for analysis. McAllister and an unidentified accomplice, now deceased, emerged as suspects. From 2021 onward, detectives presented their findings to prosecutors, who filed charges last week.

The Warren County prosecutor stated that investigators showed persistence in pursuing the case, ultimately gathering sufficient evidence to indict the defendant. McAllister is currently held at the county jail facing murder charges.

Source: Ethnos

Source: Google News GR — Crime (el)