Milwaukee cold case, police recover dead suspect's DNA: warrant
Milwaukee cold case, police recover dead suspect's DNA
A newly unsealed search warrant provides new details on a decades-old cold case.
MILWAUKEE - A newly unsealed search warrant provides new details on a decades-old cold case in which an 18-year-old Milwaukee woman was killed.
Dead man's DNA
What we know:
The warrant states officers have recovered DNA from a dead man who was long suspected of being the primary suspect in the homicide of 18-year-old Nancy Radbil.
Nancy Radbil
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Lee Kemmer died in 1980. The warrant states, in April, investigators were allowed to search Kemmer's grave for DNA – like bones, hair and teeth.
Missing woman found dead
The backstory:
Radbil died in July 1979. She left for a bike ride near Menomonee River Parkway and never returned home. In the days that followed, an extensive search left authorities, friends and family searching for any trace of the soon-to-be college sophomore.
"Was a huge story at the time. People really came together and helped the family look," Det. James Hutchinson told FOX6 in 2019.
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In the days that followed Radbil's disappearance, search parties focused in on the area where she was last seen near Highway 100 and Lovers Lane. Someone from that search party discovered a sewer cap that wasn’t quite right, according to police records.
"Noticed the sewer cap was about two-thirds of the way off of the sewer base," Det. Nathan Butz told FOX6 in 2019. "When they started looking into the sewer, they saw a few of the items that belonged to Nancy down there."
Evidence found in sewer in 1979
Detectives discovered her clothing and shoes she was last seen wearing. They soon discovered her body and bike not long after.
The search continued for the person who killed Radbil. Sometime after her death, a sketch was released of a possible suspect, and authorities combed through records to try and locate an owner of the red Honda motorcycle.
DNA evidence
Dig deeper:
The biggest clue for the authorities was left behind in 1979, but they wouldn’t discover its significance until many years later.
At the time of Radbil’s death, authorities said swabs were taken from her body, but some of those weren’t sent to the crime lab until DNA testing became more commonplace. In this case, DNA testing played a significant role when samples were sent to the lab in 1999. That year, police began working backwards, gathering DNA from any of the previous suspects to see if it came up as a match.
The Source: FOX6 News referenced documents filed in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, as well as prior coverage of the case, for this story.