Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) said Monday that police had used new DNA evidence to arrest a 77-year old man for allegedly killing a woman more than 30 years ago and for possible link to three other slayings in California.

Adolph Laudenberg, arrested Friday and charged with one count of murder, is being held on the 1-million-dollar bail and was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Laudenberg's arrest was the first made by the Cold Case unit, which is a relatively new LAPD unit that investigates unsolved homicides, unit chief Richard Jackson said.

Assistant LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said that "DNA technology is now catching up with a lot of those folks," as the Cold Case unit works on going back to crimes that remained unsolved.

Police suspect that Laudenberg killed Lois Petrie, 43, on Dec. 25, 1972. Petrie was found the next day strangled and sexually assaulted in her San Pedro home, McDonnell said.

The case was revived last March after a witness came to police with details of a recent conversation she had with Laudenberg, who was interviewed by police in 1975 after being implicated by a witness but denied the killings. Police at the time could not find physical evidence linking him to the murders.

"This is our first DNA hit where it's resulted in a criminal filing for this unit, which started about a year-and-a-half ago. We have new people coming into the unit, (to) double our size. We have more DNA technicians coming, we have more fingerprint computer people being hired + which is gonna give us a lot of cold hits in the fingerprint area," said Jackson.

Meanwhile, police are continuing an investigation into three other murders to which Laudenberg may be connected: 50-year-old Catherine Medina, whose nude body was found in a San Pedro park in 1974; 54-year-old Anna Felch, also of San Pedro, who was strangled and sexually assaulted in 1974; and a third homicide in the Bay Area, also in the 1970s.

Police obtained a DNA profile of the victims and put Laudenberg under surveillance, during which they recovered unspecified physical evidence, Detective Richard Bengston said.

The suspect' s DNA profile matched the DNA evidence found on Petrie's body. And a DNA analysis matching the suspect to the other three victims is currently being analyzed, he added.

Close

Today's Top News		Top Lifestyle News
+Beijing-Shanghai fast rail link on track ( 2003-09-09) +FDI 'magnet' set to draw record sum ( 2003-09-09) +WHO cautious on new 'SARS case' ( 2003-09-09) +Carmakers ink billion euro pact ( 2003-09-09) +Few people do it, but wife swapping agrees with some ( 2003-09-09)		+DNA leads to arrest of 77-year-old Los Angeles serial murder suspect ( 2003-09-09) +China blocks 127 spam servers ( 2003-09-09) +SARS report mechanism to be continued ( 2003-09-09) +10 giant pandas born in China this year ( 2003-09-09) +Man commits suicide after feeding three children poison ( 2003-09-09)