Law enforcement

Indiana Police Solve 47-Year-Old Murder of College Student Pamela Milam

Last year, police began working with Parabon NanoLabs, a Virginia-based company that works with law enforcement using DNA, ancestry databases and traditional genealogical work, to try and solve Milam’s murder

Authorities in Indiana said Monday that the 1972 murder of a college student has been cleared, marking the latest example of a cold case solved through DNA testing and genealogy, NBC News reports.

Terre Haute Police Chief Shawn Keen identified the killer of 19-year-old Pamela Milam as Jeffrey Lynn Hand. Hand was killed in a shootout with police in 1978 during an attempted kidnapping, Keen said in a news release.

Milam was last seen on the night of Sept. 15, 1972, leaving a sorority event at Indiana State University in Terra Haute, southwest of Indianapolis, Keen said. Her body was found bound and gagged in the trunk of her car the next night.

“It’s been a long 46 years, seven months and 20 days,” Milam’s sister, Charlene Sanford, said during a Monday news conference. “Many of us, as we got older, thought we would die before we ever learned who killed our sister.”

 "We were happy to know he hasn't been out there living a great life for 47 years," she added.

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