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Did DNA from a Razor Solve a California Cold Case?

Pop Culture Crime
4 min readJul 6, 2019

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Photo via San Luis Obispo Tribune

One of the most useful tools available to cold case investigators is DNA evidence. No matter how controversial the use of genealogy websites to match DNA to murder suspects may be, the first guilty convictions from such cases have begun to roll in, and justice can finally be served.

Then in some cases, the suspect is already dead.

The Murder of Jane Morton Antunez

In 1977, Jane Morton Antunez was a 30-year-old woman with a wide net of friends and a divorce in her recent past. Jane was the mother to a 13-year-old daughter, but the girl lived with her father in Oregon. Since her divorce, Jane had been living with her parents.

On November 17, 1977, Jane left her family’s home in their gold Datsun to visit with some friends at about 7:30 p.m. She would never arrive at her destination.

Upon realizing that Jane had not arrived home or to her friend’s house the next day, her brother, David, began searching for her. Unfortunately, Jane’s family had already suffered a tremendous loss. In 1965, Jane’s teenage sister died in a car accident.

Jane’s brother made a terrifying discovery that day. He stumbled across the family vehicle, parked along a dirt road in Atascadero. His sister was in the back seat, dead with a throat…

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Pop Culture Crime
Pop Culture Crime

Written by Pop Culture Crime

Just a West Coast girl passionate about my hungry guys.

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